Julien Baker’s upcoming third album, Little Oblivions, is her biggest yet, abandoning her intimate acoustics for a full-band sound. On her new single “Favor,” she’s building out that sound with old friends. Baker’s boygenius bandmates Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus join her on backing vocals, punctuating Baker’s raw lyrics with their second-nature harmonies. The song is just the latest collaboration for the trio since their standout 2018 boygenius EP. Last year saw them back Hayley Williams on “Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris,” then sing two of Bridgers’s Punisher tracks, including the stunning “I Know the End.” And it sounds like we should expect yet another boygenius reunion soon. “We sang on ‘Favor’ in Nashville the same day we recorded vocals for ‘Graceland Too’ and a song of mine,” Dacus, whose last album was 2018’s Historian, said in a release. “That day had the same atmosphere as when we recorded the boygenius EP. Making music was just a natural result of being together, easy as can be but also rare in a way that feels irreplicable.”
