It is like nothing so much as a cathedral of sound, an all-enveloping choral tide that sweeps over the listener, taking us to faraway places. It is music so unique that only the name of its creator suffices to describe it: Enya. With her 1988 debut album, Watermark, the music of Enya was discovered by a worldwide audience. The LP sold a phenomenal 11 million copies internationally, while its stunning single, “Orinoco Flow (Sail Away),” went to No. 1 in virtually every country with a popular music chart.

With the release of her long-awaited follow-up, 1991’s Shepherd Moons, Enya returned to once again delight, challenge and mesmerize us. Here is a haunting, evocative work that truly belongs to the global village. Yet it is also music very much rooted in a time and place. From the elegant quick-step waltz of single “Caribbean Blue,” to the stirring Shaker air, “How Can I Keep from Singing?,” to the melancholy beauty of the title track, Shepherd Moons is an album that reminds us how music, heartfelt and hearth-warmed, really can make the world, and our lives in it, better, more beautiful and, for at least the moment, at peace.

Shepherd Moons somehow managed to top the sales of its runaway predecessor, selling a staggering 12 million copies, debuting at the peak of the UK album chart and maintaining a vice like grip on the US charts for 199 consecutive weeks. Shepherd Moons also won Enya her first Grammy for Best New Age Album.