After recording Whippersnapper in his family’s Brooklyn basement studio, Devan Mulvaney’s solo capture took on an entirely new life. In a devastating turn, his parents and sister perished in a car crash in upstate New York, Mulvaney having opted to stay home and mix the album. The dream-pop collection melds the bright, kicky instrumentals of Dirty Projectors with Beach House’s slow-burning expansiveness. “Grow Up” and “When We Were Younger” remark on youthful magic fading through the years, with standout “Into the Woods” playing out a childhood liberation fantasy: “Move to the woods/ And live like we wish we could.” The Austin transplant explores folk ambience (“A Place I’ve Never Been”) and one looping sound bath (“Cathedral”). Eight-minute celestial trip “It’s Time” bookends the decade work chronicle, a document of growing up and letting go.

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This article appears in February 2 • 2018.

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