Ballroom Marfa welcomed worldly chanteuse Keren Ann and gauzy pop duo Dean & Britta (formerly of Luna) to the Goode Crowley theater on February 22 for the second installment of its 2008 music program.

Israeli-born singer Keren Ann Zeidel, who lives and works in both New York and Paris, brought her collection of haunting, intimate songs to Marfa. In summer 2007, in the midst of a flurry of press for her self-titled third album, Keren Ann said that her music -– with its spare melodies and haunting, lyrics about love and despair, sung in a smoky voice –- are perfect for the desert. “My music has all the characteristics of dry, open spaces,” she told Black Book magazine. “It puts you in an ethereal mood.”

During her childhood in Paris, Keren Ann devoured Joni Mitchell and Serge Gainsbourg, the ghosts of whom are apparent on 2003’s understated Not Going Anywhere. That album introduced Keren Ann’s melancholy sound to the United States and was followed up in 2004 with her love letter to New York, Nolita, titled after the Manhattan neighborhood where she lived at the time.

Keren Ann shared the Goode Crowley stage with two longtime members of the indie rock pantheon: Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. After fronting the seminal post-punk band Galaxie 500 in the late 1980s, Wareham went on to found Luna with former Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski and The Chills’ bassist, Justin Harwood. Wareham’s almost-monotone delivery garnered comparisons to Lou Reed, and Rolling Stone dubbed Luna’s 1995 album Penthouse one of the essential albums of the ’90s. In 2000, Britta Phillips –- the former bass player for Babyfat, and the singing voice of beloved ’80s cartoon character “Jem” -– replaced Harwood on bass, bringing her sultry voice to Luna’s atmospheric rock.

Wareham and Phillips, who had recorded 2003’s L’Avventura as a duo, continued playing under the name Dean & Britta after Luna disbanded in 2005, and went on to score Noah Baumbachs’ The Squid and the Whale. Their latest offering, Back Numbers, continues the couple’s foray into sleepy and sweet psych-pop.

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