Ellie Goulding’s debut album, Lights, made thrillingly clear that Goulding uses her voice as a texture in much the same way that a skilled instrumentalist would. It is, in other words, a sound — in Ellie’s case, an utterly distinctive and unforgettable one — that can play as important a role in her songs as any other musical detail. Cascading, dovetailing, soaring, swooping, Ellie’s layered vocal parts bring a haunting complexity to songs that often come from relatively uncomplicated origins: Observations, memories and emotions that trigger a melody, a lyric, bare bones around which Ellie will then build musical and verbal narratives that are at once ornate and austere, passionate and enigmatic.

Not even the most ardent fan or keenest student of Lights is going to be prepared for the shock of Ellie’s new album Halcyon, however. A musical, vocal and lyrical tempest, the new record describes a journey out of heartache and towards hope, from desolation to renewed faith in the future, set to music that is alternately strident and stunned, emphatic and tentative. It is almost as if you can hear Ellie’s psyche shrinking and then renewing, rebooting itself. From the opening vocal chanting of “Don’t Say a Word” to the last bars of “Dead In the Water,” Halcyon is the product of 2 1/2 tumultuous years in Ellie’s life: a Brit award, the release of Lights, love, loss, writer’s block, a new relationship, singing at the White House and at a certain spring wedding, a number one pop single that has sold three million copies in America and confronting her doubts and fears, digging deep and locating her artistry.