The Saga of Mayflower May

Hailed as a smoky chanteuse both sultry and captivating, Marissa Nadler’s songs are mostly mournful dirges and melancholic ballads. Delving into influences of old-timey Americana folk, Portuguese fado, psychedelia and country, the songwriting is gripping and unique. Pursuing the persona poem, most of the songs are stories of tragic deaths, forbidden fates, jilted love affairs and stormy suicides, as well as some introspective first-person songs. In concert, the melodrama is obvious, each performance dripping with vaudevillian nostalgia. Nadler’s intricate fingerstyle guitar comes through on six-string, twelve-string, banjo, ukelele, and autoharp. Her voice is velvety, resonant and soaring with ethereal reverberations.