There isn’t a lot of genuine guilelessness in music these days. Almost everything is artificial, and even those artists who do hit upon deep truths often do so through the veil of a constructed persona. (We’re looking at you, Father John Misty.)

Briana Marela, on the other hand, is ingenuous almost to a fault. The Seattle-based singer’s approach to songwriting is devoid of pretence, and its apparent artlessness is, it must be said, not for everyone.

Reviewing Marela’s second LP, All Around Us, Pitchfork’s Joel Oliphint noted that her lyrics “sometimes lack craft and thoughtfulness” and too often err on the side of childishness. It’s possible that Oliphint just doesn’t appreciate the deceptively simple, emotionally rich nature of a number such as “Take Care of Me”, which is based around Marela’s signature layers of diaphanous, honey-sweet vocals and singsong melodies. “You take care of me like I’m the only one,” she sings. “You take care of me like I’m someone that matters.”

Where some, like Oliphint, hear naiveté, others might hear a level of plainspoken honesty that’s almost painfully naked.

“It’s very personal,” Marela says of her songwriting when the Straight reaches her in Olympia, Washington, on a rainy afternoon. “It’s really all about the things I’m feeling and how people have made me feel. It’s pretty real. That’s been kind of scary sometimes, especially when I’ve played songs for the people that the songs are written about. Sometimes it’s kind of intense, but sometimes it’s really beautiful. I think it’s really healing and good.”

Some of the songs on All Around Us were written for specific people. An example is “Dani”, addressed with sincere empathy to a friend who had recently gone through a painful breakup: “Dani, you’re not the only one lonely tonight.”

“I’ve found in all my relationships—like friendships or lovers—that I think the best way of really having a deep connection with someone is allowing yourself to be vulnerable with them,” Marela says. “I think maybe deep down I do want to be able to find connections with everyone; maybe in this kind of, like, selfish, weird way I just want to be friends with everyone. I wish I could make that connection with everyone that hears my music, I guess.”

One person who has been touched deeply by Marela’s music is Alex Somers. The Iceland-based American musician and producer—best known for his work with Sigur Rós and Jónsi—heard the singer’s previous album, 2012’s Speak From Your Heart, and subsequently sought her out. Marela ended up travelling to Reykjavík to record All Around Us, with Somers producing and members of múm and Amiina contributing to the glacially ethereal soundscapes.

Marela admits that, apart from the odd visit to Vancouver, her trip to Reykjavík was the first time she had ever travelled outside of the United States. She is, however, looking forward to spending more time away from home, and has recruited drummer Joel Skavdahl and keyboardist-vocalist Natalie Day to play with her, and keep her company, on the road.

If she still gets lonely, however, she has her songs to give her solace. “They just kind of inspire me to keep going,” she says. “When there have been things I’ve been worrying about, then I’m able to get them out in a song so I can worry about them a bit less. It’s like I took some of the pain away, or I took some of the anxiety away and turned it into something different.”

Briana Marela opens for Jenny Hval at the Cobalt on Friday (August 28).