In June 2012, Justin Vernon and his demigod-status project Bon Iver played before a packed house and put on a spectacle within the cavernous space of the Straz Center’s Morsani Hall. A little over a year later, another neo-folk messiah — Winston Yellen of Night Beds — would hold a much smaller audience in a relatively tiny venue equally (if not more) spellbound. The boy’s haunting tenor is breathtaking, and hearing him quietly work through cuts from what might be one of the best albums of the year (Country Sleep) was a gift you don’t get handed very often.

This article appears in Sep 19-25, 2013.