and lusher instrumentation, along the lines of the album’s opener, the decidedly Lucinda Williams–like single “Over the Edge.” Instead, the album is sparse and subtle, featuring cellist Nathaniel Smith and fiddler Alex Hargreaves, a pair of players she met in Boston and will tour with as a trio. And while Paczosa says albums four, five, and six are the ones he’s most excited to work on, he doesn’t view her reluctance to grab the brass ring with this one as an insult or a defeat. “I don’t think she’s ever going to outright conform,” Paczosa says. “I love that when somebody talks about doing something commercially viable, she glazes over. That’s not where her head is. I think that’s a beautiful thing. She’s not chasing. She’s not copying.”

“I trusted my instincts this time the same way I did on the first two records,” says Jarosz. “When I’ve trusted myself, I think people have recognized that and see it has an honest representation of who I am. Why would I change that?”

Jarosz says she also trusts the instincts behind her recent decision to move to Brooklyn. Traditionally, acoustic players move to Nashville, where there’s plenty of lucrative session work to be had and you can find many like-minded collaborators—and, if you’re willing to tweak your sound 90 degrees, you might even land a song on the country charts under your own name. Brooklyn, by contrast, is better known as a magnet for young indie-rock bands, dubstep producers, and jazz musicians. It’s easy to imagine the soft plinks and gentle melodies of Sarah Jarosz being drowned out by the din of crashing guitars or throbbing bass lines. 

But Jarosz, who bucked convention by heading for the conservatory, wants to get pushed out of her comfort zone again.

“New York scares me a little bit, and I love that,” she says. “I graduated, but I’m never going to stop learning.”