Mexican-Panamanian multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter Michelle Blades has a songbird, dulcet quality to her vocals, while her music culls elements of 1970s folk and psychedelia, krautrock, garage pop, synth rock, Talking Heads–style post-punk, and off-beat experimentalism into music that is irrepressibly charming. She grew up on a steady diet of cumbia, salsa, dembow, and son (she comes from a family of salsa musicians), but her style is more informed by the time she spent in Phoenix's underground DIY scene and after that, in and around Paris, France, home to her label Midnight Special and where she eventually settled. Her transatlantic band Los Machetes will back her at Freakout. by Leilani Polk