About

At the start of the century, Devendra Banhart emerged as the ecstatic pied piper of an esoteric folk resurgence, a magnetic singer-songwriter who mingled childlike wonder and guru-level insight over glittering fingerpicked guitar. Unapologetically inquisitive and ardent, Banhart’s early works seemed to provide a sort of instruction manual for life.

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But Banhart soon seemed lost himself, or at least distracted in the search for something more. Since 2005’s discursive Cripple Crow, his records have veered wildly into magpie obsessiveness, recombining genres and criss-crossing borders in search of revelations that didn’t come. In the process, he’s made messes of records, though they’ve always included a few stunning moments, songs like “I Remember” or “Never Seen Such Good Things” that insisted the singular spark of those early works remained. The beguiling Ma—his tenth album and best and most cohesive statement in more than a decade—starts to rekindle it.

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Approaching 40 and dealing with the death of parents and mentors, Banhart realized in recent years that he may never become a father. Ma, he has said, is his attempt to gather the insight he might pass along to his hypothetical child, lessons he wished he’d learned as an adolescent. The broad prompt gives Banhart a necessary sense of direction but ample leeway to roam, a space to pull together the messy threads of his life. There is jubilation and mourning, existential unease and everyday amusement. He sings in four languages, gliding among English, Portuguese, Japanese, and Spanish, and he shifts smoothly during one three-song stretch from electric country-funk to string-buoyed piano balladry to elegiac finger-picking. This time, the moves make Banhart’s messages feel ecumenical rather than disjointed, hard-won wisdom he’s ready to dole out in any way he can. - Pitchfork