ALBUM REVIEW: Kevin Morby Walks Off into the Sunset on the Expansive ‘Little Wide Open’

If you’re lucky, the closing of a chapter comes with the kind of clarity that lets you move forward with optimism. Kevin Morby’s eighth album, Little Wide Open, finds him in this spiritual space, at a bittersweet ending, on the cusp of something thrilling and new.

May 13, 2026 - 16:21

ALBUM REVIEW: Kevin Morby Walks Off into the Sunset on the Expansive ‘Little Wide Open’

If you’re lucky, the closing of a chapter comes with the kind of clarity that lets you move forward with optimism. Kevin Morby’s eighth album, Little Wide Open, finds him in this spiritual space, at a bittersweet ending, on the cusp of something thrilling and new. Literally, it marks the end of his sojourn back home to the Midwest, now settled in Los Angeles and about to become a father, making peace with all the growing up it took to arrive here. Sonically, though, Little Wide Open feels like he’s already reached the next place, tapping producer Aaron Dessner to help get him there. Dessner’s knack for grounding artists to their simplest selves does wonders for Morby, who is radiant in this unfussy expanse.

Morby has signaled that Little Wide Open is the third and final album in a trilogy that began with 2020’s Sundowner and continued with 2022’s This is a Photograph. But where those periods felt, at times, mired in searching, Morby in the darkest thickets of his thoughts, this one is a deep breath, a soft release. Vulnerability and acceptance run through even the album’s most restless cuts like “Javelin,” a catchy road song about the wear and tear of being in a constant state of motion, and the album’s eight-minute title track opus. “I'm a little wide open/And I hope that I close/Or else my heart takes everything in/And one day explodes,” he sings.