I don’t know if there’s a world record for longest gap between a song’s debut in a Tiny Desk concert and its eventual release, but I suspect Caroline Rose holds it. In 2015, Rose was a 25-year-old Americana songwriter with a twang-soaked voice when they performed “Yip Yip Yow,” a gibberish-filled psychobilly joyride, behind public radio’s most revered desk. The song sounded like a blast, with a call-and-response refrain that pulls you by the collar, inducing you to join in: “Yip yow yip yow yow !/Yip yow yip yip yip yow!” But its country-stomp arrangement felt a little too… polite.

Rose soon shed their Americana trappings, publicly embraced their queerness, and revamped their musical identity. They reintroduced themself on their next record, 2018’s thrilling LONER , as a shape-shifting alt-pop weirdo, clad in bright-red jumpsuits and a devilish smirk. They’d once wanted to be a Serious Songwriter, à la Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell , but “Yip Yip Yow” pointed the way to a wackier, freer mode of writing.…