For a searcher like Michaela, sitting still was no easy task. Born and raised in a military family that relocated often, she first began garnering national attention with the 2014 release of Ease My Mind, an old-school country collection hailed by The New York Times for its “plain-spoken songs of romantic regret and small-town longing.” After a move from Brooklyn to Nashville, Michaela followed it up in 2016 with the similarly lauded Bright Lights and the Fame, which prompted Rolling Stone to compare her to Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. However, it was Desert Dove, Michaela’s 2019 Yep Roc debut, that truly marked her critical and commercial breakthrough, landing her festival invitations everywhere from Bonnaroo to XPoNential alongside praise from Billboard, USA Today, The Associated Press, Paste, and more. The World Café raved that “Michaela Anne’s voice shines like a beacon,” while Rolling Stone named the album one of the year’s best country and Americana releases, and NPR hailed lead single “By Our Design” as “one of those moody, breathtaking, stop-you-in-your-tracks songs with a lush, sweeping arrangement all anchored by Anne's stunning vocals.”