Matthew Houck — the primary agent behind Phosphorescent — has wandered a ways over the years, from spare, narcotized one-man folk to the rangy, full-band country rambles of 2010’s Here’s to Taking It Easy. The new Muchacho (Dead Oceans) draws a little from both sides of that fence, but also finds Houck exploring some surprising new pastures. The album opens and closes with a serene, synth-dappled choral invocation to the sunrise, and its two finest moments, each an easy career highlight, similarly evoke the glowing comfort and reassurance of a breaking dawn: the calmly defiant, getting-up-from-the-gutter optimism and curiously soupy sonic meanderings of “Muchacho’s Tune” and the glorious “Song for Zula,” a sweeping, radio-ready epic whose sumptuous, string-suffused beat loops have echoes of U2’s “One” and the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” It’s an unexpectedly effective fit for Houck’s drowsy, rough-edged drawl.

Mon., March 25, 9 p.m., $13-$15, with Strand of Oaks, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.