Amara-Fe has definitively shifted from the messy business of becoming into the absolute certainty of claiming with her new album, "A Queen’s Ambition". The rising solo artist, tethered to deep musical roots extending through Mission and Dallas, Texas, arrives fully formed here. There is a palpable weight to her cinematic R&B and electropop arrangements. You can almost feel her surveying her territory, setting borders,...

Inal Bilsel, "Once Upon a Cloudtop Meadow". Honestly, the title alone conjures... well, precisely what the music delivers. It's an album that sounds like the background music for a Studio Ghibli film that doesn't exist yet, but absolutely should. Have you ever seen a cat yawn so widely it looks like it's trying to swallow the sun? That level of surprising delight – that's...