Crack-Up

Crack-Up follows Helplessness Blues after a hiatus from 2013 to 2016 and was the band's first release on Nonesuch. Its title is loosely drawn from F. Scott Fitzgerald's essay collection of the same name. It was recorded between July 2016 and January 2017 at The Unknown in Anacortes, The Void in Amenia, Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, Avast, Sear Sound and Electric Lady, mixed by Phil Ek at Sear Sound and mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound in February 2017. A string quartet appears on four songs, and the horns were written by Pecknold and played by The Westerlies.

The first song out, Third of May / Odaigahara, arrived on 7 March 2017 with a lyric video by Sean Pecknold and Adi Goodrich, and an edited 4:02 version followed three days later. Pecknold confirmed on Reddit that the opening track begins exactly where Grown Ocean, the last song of Helplessness Blues, ends. Fool's Errand followed on 12 May with a video starring Jade-Lorna Sullivan. The album streamed on NPR on 8 June. The opening song contains a recording of White Winter Hymnal sung by the Phoenix Forte chorus of Achievement First University Prep High School, and On Another Ocean contains elements of Mulatu Astatke's performance of Tezeta.

On Song Exploder on 22 June 2017 Pecknold broke down Mearcstapa and mentioned Ali Farka Toure, Can and Steve Strohmeier as influences. The album debuted at nine on the Billboard 200 with 34,000 units, 32,000 of them pure sales, and Metacritic scored it 81 from 31 reviews. Ian Cohen's Pitchfork review of 15 June 2017 described it as the band's most complex and compelling album to date. The tour began on 15 May with four small American shows and four nights at the Sydney Opera House, and the band played four songs on KEXP on 17 May.