Devendra Banhart — Cripple Crow

What is it with these new folk singers? They've all got records out every year — sometimes two. Cripple Crow marks Devendra Banhart's fourth disc in the last two years. At 22 tracks and 75 minutes, this is a Sufjan Stevens-like epic. Banhart's sound evolves so heavily on Cripple Crow that he almost sounds like a different artist. Gone are the incredibly sparse arrangements, replaced with complex instrumentation and heavy atmosphere. There are reggae jams and Velvet Underground dirges, one-minute tracks that float by like nothing and sprawling campfire singalongs. These songs sound like fresh grass and clean air: they're the kind of things you actually have to absorb.

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