In many people’s minds, Martha Wainwright remains the confessional singer-songwriter who castigated her folk icon dad on her eponymous debut. But she’s tried plenty of other musical personas since, and her sixth studio album shows her versatility at its best, its songs not so much genre experiments as joyful costume changes. Wainwright moonlights variously as folksy singer-songwriter (Traveller), jazz crooner (Before the Children Came Along) and electropop chanteuse (Look Into My Eyes), and remains a deft interpreter of other people’s songs. Of the handful included here, the best are Tune-Yards’s sinuously funky Take the Reins and Francis by her brother Rufus, the kind of swooning chamber pop he used to write for himself.
