Father John Misty w/King Tuff @ The Pabst Theater

In addition to his time drumming for Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman already had seven albums released under his own name when he decided to reinvent himself as Father John Misty for his 2012 album, Fear Fun, which marked a wild departure from the comparatively traditional folk of his previous releases. Liberated by his new, joyfully ridiculous shamanic alter ego—and most likely by all the mushrooms he’d been wolfing down at the time—he recorded his druggiest, most exploratory album—a sprawling, symphonic, psych-pop magnum opus. On subsequent albums, he’s run with that expansive, baroque sound. His latest, 2018’s God’s Favorite Customer, features some of his more personal songwriting yet. He’s described it as “a heartache album.”