An Invitation is an intimate collaboration between Inara and legendary arranger Van Dyke Parks. The result is a lush, elegant, fully orchestrated song cycle, a catalog of experiences equally inspired by the sophistication of Frank Sinatra and the storied, cinematic wonder of Richard Sherman’s oeuvre. Throughout the record, Van Dyke’s cerebral (psychedelic, even) arrangements twist the music into multiple directions at once, a swirling canvas suspended over the sonic mantelpiece of Inara’s songs, bewitching and perplexing, a truly organic achievement among friends in an era of artificial pleasures.