Stephen Thompson

Alexandra Levy makes music for maximum intimacy: Augmented by acoustic guitars, she frequently sings in a weary, tortured whisper.

New Orleans' Sweet Crude sports a brightly booming pop sound and Cajun influences that extend to its bilingual lyrics.

Nigerian singer-songwriter Yemi Alade has become a major Afropop star in recent years. She recently appeared on Beyoncé's The Lion King: The Gift.

William Doyle builds a power-pop blowout that's almost overwhelming in its grandiosity.

The dreamy psych-pop band Shana Falana throws a lot at the wall — bright lights and visuals in its live shows and busily churning guitars and ethereal vocals — but also knows when to keep it simple.

Ella O'Connor's gripping, introspective songs radiate warmth and intensity at the same time. Her debut album reflects on her search for a place in the world dating all the way back her own birth.

Born in Las Vegas, educated at Berklee and based in Nashville, Savannah Sgro is a hugely promising pro with a flair for drama and an eye toward several genres at once.

Parisalexa's sound draws heavily on the springy, buoyant playfulness of '90s R&B, but she's too genre-fluid, rangy and clever to sound like a mere throwback.

Ohmme's music feels experimental and strange yet still accessible, with an underlying gut-level rumble that keeps its songs from floating into the ether.

Nordista Freeze is only in his early 20s, but his creative lineage stretches farther back. As good-natured as it is infectious, his music sounds like an unseasonably pleasant spring Saturday.

Tré Burt's sandy, lived-in voice recalls Jeff Tweedy at his most ambling and approachable. Burt's own wryly thoughtful songs roll along with a lo-fi charm that never undercuts their propulsiveness.

Sammy Brue has had a reasonably typical career trajectory, until you spot that he's still just 18. In "Teenage Mayhem," he unleashes three minutes of irresistibly vein-bulging breakneck rowdiness.

Pianist and composer Lambert performs evocative, cinematic instrumentals wearing a mask. He's also released dance remixes of his works and collaborated with bands, singers and electronic musicians.

Nicklas Sahl's "New Eyes" was an award-winning smash in his native Denmark, and there's no reason it couldn't cross over here: It's a slippery pop-and-soul earworm, microdosed with a bit of country.

There's no sense in resisting the playful jangle of Kiwi Jr., a Canadian band with a sound straight out of late-'80s and early-'90s college radio.

Hook named herself after her own aptitude for writing catchy choruses, but her raps are bark and crackle so discordantly, you nod along so much as clench your teeth approvingly.

Heran Soun was deaf for much of his early childhood. His music bridges folk, rock, electronic and ambient music with the help of a soaring, deeply emotive voice.

Naia Izumi won the 2018 Tiny Desk Contest in part due to his truly dazzling guitar technique. But to watch him intricately tap and whammy away, it's easy to lose sight of his remarkable vocals.

The Parisian guitar-pop band Marble Arch wouldn't have felt out of place on a college-radio playlist 30 years ago. But it still feels modern, sweetly rendered and utterly, hookily approachable.

When Nadia Reid moved from New Zealand to the U.S., she felt a deep sense of alienation and isolation — feelings that naturally bled into her beautifully, reverberantly melancholy music.