Last month, 19-year-old singer-songwriter Julien Baker released her debut, Sprained Ankle, a soft-spoken, melancholy montage of pain, angst, and uncertainty. With melodies built around slow-moving acoustic arrangements, it’s easy to misinterpret her songs as sad when what they really are is earnest, open to entertaining every dark thought and hurtful truth.-=-=-=-

The title track is a fitting introduction to both her music and her writing, which squeeze the air out of every syllable, leaving only breathlessness. Over a plucked riff and numbing bass, Baker diagrams her process (“Spilling my gut/ Sweat on a microphone breaking my voice”). She has an airy voice that is closer to a whisper than a hum, but she pushes a little harder on vowel sounds, causing some words to dissolve back into silence. “Sprained Ankle” is meta, a piercing song about songwriting, and in it she wonders whether she’s getting it right. “Wish I could write songs about anything other than death,” she coos, describing the toll of being so emotionally honest.