A mischievous glimmer haloes I Always Wanted You, the second solo album from South Asian American songwriter Arthi Meera. Her first new work after a years-long hiatus, the record playfully and incisively reckons with the pernicious expectations that tend to follow women, especially those who dare to make music, throughout their lives: that they always be younger, thinner, and more available to male fantasy. Like other '80s-adoring alternative pop acts Blood Orange and Beach House, the Bay Area based artist suffuses her nimble and colorful songwriting with abundant humor and melancholy in turn. Recorded with producer Maryam Qudus at John Vanderslice's Tiny Telephone studio, I Always Wanted You joyfully celebrates Meera's return to music. It's the album she always wanted to make, one that plugs her skillful melodies into a fully rendered electroacoustic dreamscape in the tradition of '80s dark pop greats like Cocteau Twins and The Cure. -Sasha Geffen