“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.
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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 heritage into sharp focus, serving as an early example of bilingual experimentation. In an era when U.S. indie music rarely acknowledged deep ties to Latin American traditions, the album broke the mold, drawing inspiration from legends like Venezuela’s Simón Díaz, Argentina’s Mercedes Sosa and Brazil’s Caetano Veloso. Its impact continues to echo in a new wave of bilingual, U.S.-born Latin artists, such as Cuco and Omar Apollo, who carry their roots beyond the boundaries of the indie scene.
Now, as Banhart launches his new label, Heavy Flowers, and works on a forthcoming album with Ecuadorian-American artist Helado Negro, he’s marking the occasion with the release of Cripple Crow 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Out Friday (Sept. 12), the reissue features nine new songs and previously unseen photos shared by friends — retrieved after Banhart set fire to his personal archives during a pandemic-era cleansing ritual.
Additionally, the singer-songwriter also kicked off a nearly 30-date global tour on Thursday (Sep. 11), performing the 20-year-old album in its entirety. The trek stars in Homer, N.Y., with stops in Brooklyn and Boston before heading internationally to Japan, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Mexico, Chile, and culminating in Santa María de Punilla, Argentina, where he will take the stage at the Cosquín Rock festival on February 14 of next year.
Here, the artist takes us back to the communal spirit, creative ethos, and cultural influences that shaped Cripple Crow in this brief oral history.
Looking Back at Cripple Crow
Devendra Banhardt: I feel warm vibes toward the innocence of that time — a combination of a lot of embarrassment and less embarrassment. I’m not the most social person, a bit but not totally agoraphobic or misanthropic. But I’m impressed by how much community there was back then. There’s something radical about physical community. [My artist friends and I] did everything together back then — we lived together, had venues and bars that we would play at almost every night. We had this little scene, and it would rub up against these other scenes. We were all friends, supportive of each other. It was an attitude of, “if I’m playing a show, you’re invited on stage.” Everyone was invited — including the dog, who is on the record.
It applied to visual art. I have to thank the San Francisco Art Institute [and pioneers of the ’90s Mission Arts scene] that came right before us, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, and more. Alicia, for example, had her first show at [Jeffrey] Deitch [art gallery] in New York. Everyone from SF came and could put a piece [of art] on her wall which was a big deal, a “wall of friends.” That ethos of “if I have a show, you have a show,” was born from that time in San Francisco, and it was applied to Cripple Crow.
Devendra Banhart
Nicolas Lorden
The Role of Bilingualism in Music of the ‘00s and Latin American Identity
I would never make Cripple Crow today, I couldn’t and wouldn’t. It really is a product of its time. There are Spanish songs on that record because I am Venezuelan-American, and I exist in both of those worlds. My brain switches from Spanish to English. At the time, I was listening nonstop to Mercedes Sosa, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and Simón Díaz, [the latter] who we cover with “Luna de Margarita.” He’s the Caetano Veloso of Venezuela, the great poet.
[Simón Díaz] is so special because he combined two things that people typically would never think go hand in hand: poetry and comedy. He was a comedian and one of the most beautiful singers ever. I got to pay homage to somebody who influenced me so much that I grew up seeing on billboards. He was the most extraordinarily subversive person, because he was so mainstream and beloved. His songs were about the beauty of nature in Venezuela. He also has a couple of direct, explicitly anti-fascist songs. I don’t know if you know this, but Venezuela is a fascist country. He celebrates the people and never the regime. I’m really happy that I got to play this.
Then there’s the whole Brazilian influence — I was so obsessed with tropicalismo: Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Novos Baianos. We were so influenced and inspired by that. We didn’t see that reflected in the world that we lived in. We’d see footage of the movement there and how revolutionary and radical it was. To be yourself, express yourself in the way that you feel most comfortable, to feel safe within the community, and to be a freak.
On “Freak Folk” and Queerness as Marginalization
None of us made up “freak folk,” and none of us liked it when it came up. We didn’t think it was classy. We thought we were “classy” freaks. Then with the [SF drag pioneers of the late ‘60s] the Cockettes and the Angels of Light [communal theater]. We felt marginalized. I equate queerness with marginalization, in a nonsexual way. It’s about the oddness that comes from being yourself at the cost of being ostracized. That is what I think of a queer space; that’s the ultimate safe and artistic space.
I remember seeing these two subcultures parallel from one another. Tropicalismo’s attitude was “the freak flag flies” and “anything goes.” All that mattered is that you are courageous amidst the face of so many obstacles, and that you are being yourself, whether that’s sexually, philosophically, or religiously. It means “follow your bliss,” Joseph Campbell’s famous line. Do the hard thing and listen to yourself over anybody else, and try not to judge others, as you don’t know what other people have been through.
Devendra Banhart
Lauren Dukoff
The Deluxe Edition (and “Tender Embarrassment”)
We felt like it was time to reissue it as a way to also debut the label, Heavy Flowers, which I started. Most of my favorite records have been reissues anyway. I don’t think I would have been open to this idea if I wasn’t working on a record right now with new songs — it’s the only way that I could have even wanted to look into this “scary box.” Like I said, I feel a lot of tender embarrassment.
During the pandemic, I decided to burn my archives as a cleansing and purification ritual. I had a pantry in my house with everything — photos and notebooks. It usually takes like 20 to 25 notebooks to write one album. Over the course of how many albums I’ve made [12 LPs], that pantry was just full. Everything went into the fire. The fire is very important to give an offering back and witness this primordial power — to let it return to something. All of that felt very healing and liberating. It was an ego trip in a way, and an ego release. This identity and how important I think this work is, it’s all gone, gone, gone.
When my manager Christian Stavros said, “Let’s look at Cripple Crow. What do you got?” I ended up asking friends, “Do you have anything from those days?” [Music photographer] Alissa Anderson, who shot the cover, had all these old photographs and b-roll. Different friends found cassettes, others found [unreleased] demos. We had this opportunity to add these new songs, photos and drawings from that time that a couple of [friends] had been holding on to. That was wonderful. Then I had the opportunity to write a bit about my memories of that time. The album opens with a gatefold and some reflections, written in the style of Joe Brainard, a poet who wrote a beautiful autobiographical book called I Remember. So together, we all get to open up that box titled “T.E.” (Tender Embarrassment).
Devendra Banhart
Heavy Flowers
What New Generations Can Take From Cripple Crow
That it’s a joint effort, a snapshot of community, a record of community, and how important community is. Social media is a form of community and obviously a form of communication. But there is something to getting in a room and all playing music together, which is what that record was born from. The door is open, everybody’s invited, and let’s communicate through instruments. I feel like that could be a part of today’s musicians’ lives, if they’re not. We spend so much time online, and sometimes we think of our real lives as backstage, and when we’re on social media, that’s when we’re on stage, like “I have arrived!” Maybe there could be more balance. It’s so important to find people that you can find your tribe with. How about this? Delete everything I said. Just find your tribe.
Devendra Banhart
Alissa Anderson