Kevin Bronson on August 2nd, 2016

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The debut EP from Echo Park’s Luna Shadows offers familiar three-way appeal: oozing, irresistible melodies; seduction by production; and bittersweet obsession with the L.A. life and its paradisiacal, paradoxical glory. “Summertime,” the first effort from the singer-songwriter-producer isn’t exactly the aw-shucks, “made in closets and bedrooms with friends” affair it’s advertised — Thom Powers (the Naked and Famous) and Brad Hale (Now Now/Sombear) co-write and co-produce, and Kamtin Mohager of the Chain Gang of 1974 contributes on the song “Cherry.” But it is a big-sounding milestone for the artist born Natalie Angiuli, a New York native who was schooled at USC and, since her releases as an folk-pop artist about five years ago, has sung on tracks by Felix Cartal, Joey Dale & Ares Carter and GOAT. In the EP’s lush opener “Hallelujah California,” Luna Shadows champions the simple pleasures of circling the Silver Lake Reservoir, chilling at the Griffith Park Observatory and hitting Origami Vinyl Night (RIP), while acknowledging that not far away lies the “boulevard of broken dreams.” The EP, released in July, climaxes with the single “Waves,” a melancholic piano ballad elevated into the oceanfront skies by propulsive beats and electronic claps. Luna Shadows made her live debut Monday night at It’s a School Night at Bardot, and it was easy to see why, even in a world teeming with electro-pop ingenues, fans have a new crush.

||| Stream: “Summertime” (full EP)