Hozier, Halsey, Santigold, and the Tisburys headline Philly music this week

This week in Philly music features three big-name shows in Camden, a rising band’s record-release party in Center City, free music at the Odunde and Wayne Music Festivals, and the return of a hometown hero on South Street.

For starters, Ortlieb’s in Northern Liberties is the place to be on Thursday for Lily Seabird, the Vermont songwriter whose new album, Trash Mountain, is an openhearted folk-country stunner, with just the right amount of unpretty noise in the mix. Mary St. Mary and superb South Philly songwriter Shannen Moser open.

The trio of marquee nights at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden begins on Friday with Luke Bryan. You’ve watched him banter with Lionel Richie on American Idol, now see him sing the bro-country songs from a nearly 20-year career on his awkwardly named “Country Song Came on Tour.” He’s been named CMA Entertainer of the Year five times.

Saturday at FMP, it’s New Jersey’s own Halsey. The Middlesex County changeling pop star’s “For My Last Trick” tour follows her 2024 genre-fluid album, The Great Impersonator, on which she worked with a number of collaborators, including Philly indie rock heroes Alex G. and Alvvays. Hope Tala opens.

Then on Tuesday, it’s another notable night in Camden, with Hozier, the tall and talented Irishman who first made his name a decade ago with the spiritual love song “Take Me to Church.” He has been riding higher than ever on the strength of his 2024 smash hit “Too Sweet.” New Jersey breakout indie-pop singer Gigi Perez opens.

Craig Finn plays Free at Noon at the World Cafe Live on Friday. Always Been, his solo album of interconnected short story-like songs, produced by Adam Granduciel of the War On Drugs, is his best work yet outside the Hold Steady, the Brooklyn band with whom he will play three Philly shows at the end of this month.

It’s a busy weekend in Atlantic City. Balance and Composure, the Doylestown rock band that released 2024’s With You in Spirit, its first album in eight years, is playing the Anchor Rock Club.

Ledisi, the New Orleans vocalist who sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at the Superdome before the Eagles won the Super Bowl, is at Caesars. Marsha Ambrosius opens. And R&B singer Khalid plays Hard Rock Live as part of the North 2 Shore Festival.

The Tisburys play MilkBoy Philly on Saturday. It’s the slightly-delayed Philly release party for A Still Life Revisited, the April release from indie rock and power pop band fronted by Tyler Asay.

Recorded at Dr. Dog’s Delaware County studio, the album is an impressive set of songs that starts and finishes strong with ”By a Landslide” and “Here Comes the Lonesome Dove” and is a step up from 2022’s Exile on Main Street. It has earned the band a well-deserved “June Artist to Watch” status at WXPN-FM (88.5). The album features Lucy the Elephant on the cover.

The Wayne Music Festival brings an eclectic and compelling mix of acts to the Main Line on Saturday. Leading the lineup is the Ocean Blue, the band from Hershey whose 1990s albums recorded for Seymour Stein’s Sire Records have an ardent following.

Tearing it up alongside will be Black Joe Lewis, the blues and funk bandleader from Austin, Texas. Brooklyn indie band Wild Pink, featuring Philly lap steel player Mike Brenner, is also on the bill, as is jam band rising star Karina Rykman and British Isles-style folk duo Native Harrow.

On Sunday at Odunde — the free festival that takes over several blocks of South Street, west of Broad — two hip-hop legends will be in the house: Doug E. Fresh, the original “La Di Da Di” beatboxer, and Rakim, the pioneering MC who broke new ground with the complexities of his rhymes on late-1980s albums like Paid in Full and Follow the Leader with his DJ partner Eric B.

On Sunday, octogenarian vocalist Eddie Levert — who was born in Alabama, raised in Canton, Ohio, and came to fame as the central figure of Sound of Philadelphia greats the O’Jays — plays two solo shows at City Winery.

Perfume Genius — the soul-baring pop-rock project of songwriter Mike Hadreas — plays Union Transfer on Tuesday. The terrific new Glory, produced by Blake Mills, who also worked on Japanese Breakfast’s new album, is another set of unguarded songs that turns vulnerability into strength. It follows 2022’s equally good Ugly Season.

Dean Wareham has built one of the most productive and consistently satisfying careers in indie music for nigh on 40 years now, from his 1980s beginnings with Galaxie 500 on through Luna and Dean & Britta with his wife Britta Phillips, with whom he released a holiday album, A Peace of Us.

The dreamy, Velvet Undergound-adjacent through line that runs though all his work can be heard on his new solo album, That’s The Price of Loving Me, which reunites him with Galaxie 500 producer Kramer. It brings Wareham to World Cafe Live on Tuesday.

And finally Santigold — the Mount Airy-raised high-level conceptualist born Santi White, who has long blended rock, R&B, reggae, and dub into her uniquely savvy personal style — makes a rare stop at the TLA on Tuesday. The Noble Champions podcast host’s most recent album is 2022’s under-appreciated Spirituals.