Cat Power/Willis Earl Beal

A couple of years ago, Chan Marshall, stage name Cat Power, sent a finished album to her then-label for approval. They told her it wasn’t good enough, she says, and that many of the songs needed to be “fixed.” Her previous record, 2012’s more upbeat Sun, had scored higher on the Billboard charts than any other before with a Top 10 position, but she says they didn’t trust her to make the next move. “I thought, ‘Maybe I’m not a good artist?’” she recalls. “But then I thought, ‘I’m moving on. I can’t be a victim. I have a child.’”