Offa Rex, the new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, released its debut album, The Queen of Hearts, on Friday. Chaney was on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday yesterday to discuss the project, the origins of which can be traced to a tweet from The Decemberists' Colin Meloy. You can listen to the interview and even hear Chaney give an impromptu a cappella performance of an old Jewish hymn here. Chaney and Meloy will be on BBC Radio 2's The Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe on Wednesday.

Fleet Foxes were the guests on NPR's World Cafe on Friday. Host Talia Schlanger says the band's new album, Crack-Up, is "a lush and dense album with the harmonies and folky feel you expect from Fleet Foxes and a structure that's pretty unexpected." She spoke with Robin Pecknold about the album, and the band performed several songs from the album live. Find out what Pecknold had to say and hear the performances here.

The Queen of Hearts, the debut album from Offa Rex, a new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, is out now. Produced and recorded by Tucker Martine and Colin Meloy at Martine's studio in Portland, OR, and mostly arranged by Chaney, The Queen of Hearts draws largely on traditional English-Irish-Scottish repertoire to create a transatlantic musical conversation that flirts with psychedelia and folk rock while maintaining its own inimitable identity. NPR calls it "a match made in folk-rock heaven." Offa Rex will tour this summer, including performances at the Newport Folk Festival, Town Hall in New York, and at The Aladdin in Portland.

The Natalie Merchant Collection—a deluxe ten-CD box set compiled by Merchant—is out now. It's ten discs, including all eight of her solo studio albums from the past three decades; Butterfly, a new studio set featuring new songs and reinterpreted selections from her catalog, arranged for string quartet; and Rarities, a collection of rare and previously unreleased tracks. The package includes a 100-page lyric book and pictorial history of her solo career. Mojo gives the set five stars, calling it “magnificent ... a definitive and absorbing celebration of an artist with a singular voice and vision.”

k.d. lang's Ingénue: 25th Anniversary Edition is out today on CD and digital formats, with the vinyl to follow on August 18. The new two-disc set, celebrating the double platinum-selling, Grammy Award–winning album's silver anniversary, includes remastered versions of the album's original ten tracks, including its huge hit, "Constant Craving," along with eight previously unreleased performances from lang's 1993 MTV Unplugged episode, recorded in New York's famed Ed Sullivan Theater. lang marks the anniversary with the Ingénue Redux Tour, which visits Australia and the singer’s home country of Canada this summer.

Rostam has shared three additional tracks from his debut album, Half-Light, due September 15 on Nonesuch. You can listen to them here. The three tracks—"Wood," "Don't Let It Get to You," and "EOS"—are available to download now with pre-orders of Half-Light, along with the previously released album tracks "Gwan" and "Bike Dream."

Fleet Foxes play in Dublin and at Latitude Festival … Devendra Banhart tours Vienna, Munich … Tyondai Braxton is in Chicago … Michael Daves plays Grey Fox Bluegrass Fest … Rhiannon Giddens performs in the Northwest … Tigran Hamasyan tours Italy … Emmylou Harris performs in Vancouver … Lake Street Dive plays US festivals in the East … Natalie Merchant is in California … Conor Oberst heads South … Joshua Redman joins Ornette Coleman tribute in NYC … and more ...

k.d. lang spoke with Laura Veirs about her groundbreaking album Ingénue , celebrating its 25th anniversary, for NPR Music's All Songs Considered. "Back in 1992, singer k.d. lang released a record unlike any other," says NPR's Robin Hilton. "Ingénue slithered against the popular music grain with songs that drew slow, deep breaths and sighed seductively ... And lang's monumental voice, both powerful and restrained, was simply unforgettable as she sang languorous songs of love and desire." You can hear lang and Veirs' conversation here.

Emmylou Harris was the musical guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS to mark the first-ever vinyl edition of her 1992 album, At the Ryman. She performed Steve Earle's "Pilgrim." You can watch it here.

Randy Newman plays Lowell Summer Music Series, Tarrytown Music Hall … Sam Amidon joins Crash Ensemble in Ireland … Devendra Banhart is in France, Italy … Jeremy Denk joins Bellingham Festival Orchestra … Fleet Foxes play festivals in Italy, Portugal … Tigran Hamasyan performs at North Sea Jazz … Emmylou Harris tours upstate New York … Shye Ben Tzur, Rajasthan Express conclude Junun tour in Istanbul … Lake Street Dive tour US east coast … Natalie Merchant plays Midwest … Joshua Redman is in Greece …

The Queen of Hearts, the debut album from Offa Rex, a new project from Olivia Chaney and The Decemberists, is due out next Friday, July 14. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming in full as an NPR First Listen. "It's a match made in folk-rock heaven," writes NPR. "The Queen of Hearts hums with the resonance of bygone eras and ancient ways, of doomed love and arduous hardship—all of it embroidered into the patchwork tapestry of life itself." Hear it here.

Natalie Merchant begins a career retrospective tour of the United States, entitled Natalie Merchant: 3 Decades of Song, with a sold-out performance at The Bardavon in Poughkeepsie, New York, tonight. The concerts, which coincide with the forthcoming The Natalie Merchant Collection, continue with dates in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland, and more.