Muchacho by Phosphorescent

Muchacho, the sixth Phosphorescent album, arrived on Dead Oceans on March 19, 2013, with Matthew Houck, the songwriter from Huntsville, Alabama, behind the name, taking stock of everything that piled up after the tour for Here's to Taking It Easy. He produced it himself, and the title is Spanish for "boy", fitting for a record that sounds like a grown man trying to find his way back to something simpler.

The sound drifts between alt-country twang, indie folk and hazy psychedelic pop, all of it wrapped in a warm, glowing fog. "Song for Zula" is the heart of it, a slow-burning torch song that later turned up in The Spectacular Now, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the final episode of Superstore. Critics lined up behind the album, and it cracked both the Billboard 200 and the UK albums chart.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.