“Everyone was invited — including the dog,” Devendra Banhart chuckles over Zoom, looking back on Cripple Crow, his sprawling 2005 opus that was part artistic manifesto, part communal love letter. Dubbed “freak folk” at the time, the genre-bending opus was, in his words, “a snapshot of community,” where Brazilian-inspired tropicalismo, psych-folk and radical inclusivity collided.

Recorded in home studios and retreats filled with friendships and free-spirited experimentation, Cripple Crow felt more like a collective effort than a solo project. Its debut at No. 24 on Billboard‘s Independent Albums chart suggested a modest arrival, but its legacy has only grown in the years since.

Ahead of its time in both sound and perspective, Cripple Crow brought Banhart’s dual Venezuelan-American heritag

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