‘Cripple Crow’ at 20: Devendra Banhart on His Bilingual Ode to Folk & Latin Legends and the Importance of ‘Finding Your Tribe’

“Everyone was invited — including the dog,” Devendra Banhart chuckles implicit Zoom, looking backmost connected Cripple Crow, his sprawling 2005 opus that was portion creator manifesto, portion communal emotion letter. Dubbed “freak folk” astatine the time, the genre-bending opus was, successful his words, “a snapshot of community,” wherever Brazilian-inspired tropicalismo, psych-folk and extremist inclusivity collided.

Recorded successful location studios and retreats filled with friendships and free-spirited experimentation, Cripple Crow felt much similar a corporate effort than a solo project. Its debut astatine No. 24 connected Billboard‘s Independent Albums illustration suggested a humble arrival, but its bequest has lone grown successful the years since.

Ahead of its clip successful some dependable and perspective, Cripple Crow brought Banhart’s dual Venezuelan-American practice into crisp focus, serving arsenic an aboriginal illustration of bilingual experimentation. In an epoch erstwhile U.S. indie euphony seldom acknowledged heavy ties to Latin American traditions, the medium broke the mold, drafting inspiration from legends similar Venezuela’s Simón Díaz, Argentina’s Mercedes Sosa and Brazil’s Caetano Veloso. Its interaction continues to echo successful a caller question of bilingual, U.S.-born Latin artists, specified arsenic Cuco and Omar Apollo, who transportation their roots beyond the boundaries of the indie scene.

Now, arsenic Banhart launches his caller label, Heavy Flowers, and works connected a forthcoming medium with Ecuadorian-American creator Helado Negro, he’s marking the juncture with the merchandise of Cripple Crow 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Out Friday (Sept. 12), the reissue features 9 caller songs and antecedently unseen photos shared by friends — retrieved aft Banhart acceptable occurrence to his idiosyncratic archives during a pandemic-era cleansing ritual.

Additionally, the singer-songwriter besides kicked disconnected a astir 30-date planetary circuit connected Thursday (Sep. 11), performing the 20-year-old medium successful its entirety. The trek stars successful Homer, N.Y., with stops successful Brooklyn and Boston earlier heading internationally to Japan, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Mexico, Chile, and culminating successful Santa María de Punilla, Argentina, wherever helium volition instrumentality the signifier astatine the Cosquín Rock festival connected February 14 of adjacent year.

Here, the creator takes america backmost to the communal spirit, originative ethos, and taste influences that shaped Cripple Crow successful this little oral history.

Looking Back astatine Cripple Crow

Devendra Banhardt: I consciousness lukewarm vibes toward the innocence of that clip — a operation of a batch of embarrassment and little embarrassment. I’m not the astir societal person, a spot but not wholly agoraphobic oregon misanthropic. But I’m impressed by however overmuch assemblage determination was backmost then. There’s thing extremist astir carnal community. [My creator friends and I] did everything unneurotic backmost past — we lived together, had venues and bars that we would play astatine astir each night. We had this small scene, and it would hitch up against these different scenes. We were each friends, supportive of each other. It was an cognition of, “if I’m playing a show, you’re invited connected stage.” Everyone was invited — including the dog, who is connected the record. 

It applied to ocular art. I person to convey the San Francisco Art Institute [and pioneers of the ’90s Mission Arts scene] that came close earlier us, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, and more. Alicia, for example, had her archetypal amusement astatine [Jeffrey] Deitch [art gallery] successful New York. Everyone from SF came and could enactment a portion [of art] connected her partition which was a large deal, a “wall of friends.” That ethos of “if I person a show, you person a show,” was calved from that clip successful San Francisco, and it was applied to Cripple Crow. 

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