Folk-Rock Hero

It's been a year since Leonard Cohen died, and the lacuna looks like it may never be completely filled. But among pop's current crop of poet-prophets, one of the best is 36-year-old singer-songwriter Josh Tillman, who goes by stage name Father John Misty.

His third album Pure Comedy is a compelling set of folk-rock songs, filled with incisive observations of contemporary society, all delivered with droll irony and sweet sincerity. Singing against a mid-tempo acoustic beat, he reprimands governments…