Dev Hynes has been kicking around the music-blog circuit, in various wildly disparate forms, for nearly a decade. But it wasn’t until last year that he proved himself a master sideman. As a songwriter and producer, he helped Solange and Sky Ferreira to new career highs and helped usher their best songs into being. This year, with Cupid Deluxe, he does the same for himself, creating a beautifully rippling smooth-pop soundscape that fits his voice, and his worldview, like a sequined glove. Dave Longstreth and Caroline Polachek and Despot and Skepta and Clams Casino and (especially) Samantha Urbani show up and do great work. But the main show is everything Hynes puts in: The slick post-disco rhythmic push-pull, the softly-glinting pianos, the incandescent layers of marimba. And then, hovering over all of it, Hynes’s shy and stuttery and seductive tenor purr, an empathic hiccup that makes the ideal vehicle to deliver these perfectly crafted little hooks. –Tom [LISTEN]