Cripple Crow marks a departure for Devendra Banhart. It's obvious from the faux Sgt. Pepper-meets-Incredible String Band freak scene cover photo that something is afoot. The disc is Banhart's first foray from Michael Gira's Young God label, and it's more adventurous than anything he's done before. This is not to imply that the set is a slick, over-produced affair, but it is a significant change. The instrumental, stylistic, and textural range on this 23-song set is considerably wider than it's been in the past. Working with Noah Georgeson and Thom Monahan, a backing band of friends known as "the Hairy Fairies", Banhart's crafted something expansive, colorful, and perhaps even accessible to a wider array of listeners. There are layered vocals and choruses of backing singers, as well as piano and flutes on the gorgeous "I Heard Somebody Say," while the electric guitar and drums fuelling "Long Haired Child," with its reverb-drenched backing vocals, is primitive, percussive, and dark. There is also the 21st century psychedelic jug band stomp of the second single, "I Feel Just Like a Child," that crosses the nursery rhyme melodics of Mississippi John Hurt with the naughty boy swagger of Marc Bolan. There are also five songs in Spanish, Banhart's native tongue, in a style that's a cross between flamenco and son. The title cut, "Cripple Crow," is one of the most haunting anti-war songs around. In it, Banhart places a new generation in the firing line, and urges them to resist not with violence, but with pacifistic refusal. A lone acoustic guitar, hand drums, a backing chorus, and a lilting, muted flute all sift in with one another to weave a song that feels more like a prayer. The lone cover here, of Simon Diaz's "Luna de Margaerita," drips with the rawest kind of emotion. Ultimately, Cripple Crow is a roughly stitched tapestry; it is rich, varied, wild, irreverent, simple, and utterly joyous to listen to. ~ Thom Jurek

This diverse, engaging album finds the pied piper of the neo-psych-folk movement finally emerging--dirty and barefoot--from the lo-fi forest and into Woodstock's famed Bear Mountain Studio, backed by a loose conglomerate of musicians dubbed Hairy Fairy. The production polish doesn't clean the songs up so much as make them warmer and more relaxed. "Santa Maria De Feira," with its vocal harmonies, shaker, flute, and Spanish lyrics, follows a mournful, cello-backed opener that recalls Nick Drake. "Heard Somebody Say" combines timeless anti-war lyrics and Brasil '66-style vocals with a lurching piano-and-drums groove, while "When they Come" stands out as a beautiful work of hushed melancholy, with a vibe strung-out enough for a Mazzy Star record.

With 22 tracks, this is no wild, shirtless shout in the moonlight but a sophisticated work of countercultural art that would be right at home as a mind-bending double LP from 1968. The electric-guitar freak-out in "Long Haired Child," the sing-along of "Some People Ride the Wave," and the mumbling and growling in "The Beatles" all serve to demonstrate just how goofy Banhart's songs can be while still aching with intense profundity.