An L.A. native who moved to Athens in 2015 to pursue a creative writing PhD, Claire Cronin has made a mark locally with her poetic, provocative music, as captured on 2016’s Came Down a Storm, a team-up with Deerhoof’s John Dieterich. Cronin recently successfully defended her dissertation—on the cultural and personal influence of the horror genre—and is prepping another LP, Big Dread Moon, out June 14. The “self-consciously gothic” album, a collab with partner Ezra Buchla, is Cronin’s darkest to date. Songs like “Wolfman” center on her spectral vocal style and Buchla’s fluid viola playing. Elsewhere, “Call Out” conjures the ghost of grunge, and “Tourniquet” makes a case for Cronin as Athens’ best living lyricist.