Aoife O'Donovan at Folktale Winery

On her recent single “Magic Hour,” Aoife O’Donovan’s honeyed voice pierces the ethereal space between dusk and night, when the moon appears on the sunset’s heels, along a coast where “waves nip at your heels like a dog.”

The cadence of her voice bends toward her Celtic heritage; the silvery strands connect in the second verse: “It’s past the time of the dinner bell/ before the shine of Orion’s Belt/ the sky is still bluer than a bluebell.”

A fiddle quivers at the end of that sequence. Then exuberant piano notes herald the infectious chorus.

“When I go, won’t you throw my bones to the fish/ And weigh my body down with sticks and stones/ Bury me not in the old graveyard where all my friends are/ Beneath the heather on the high hillside/ Death is a lonely bride,” she sings. The juxtaposition of the buoyant tempo and pensive lyrics underline the complexity of human emotions toward death.

It’s something singer-songwriter O’Donovan reflected upon when writing her recent 2016 release and second solo venture, In the Magic Hour. She says her grandfather’s passing inspired her to think and write about “the big circle of life” and reflect upon and evoke the “happy nostalgia” of her childhood, especially time she spent with her extended family in Ireland.

O’Donovan studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston, then became a founding member of the experimental string band Crooked Still that included Carmel native cellist Rushad Eggleston. Crooked Still took a hiatus in 2011 after pulling in several awards.

O’Donovan has collaborated with well-known artists of multiple genres. Her song “Lay My Burden Down” was recorded by Alison Krauss for her 2011 release Paper Airplane. She’s sung with cello titan Yo-Yo Ma and has performed on radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion.

O’Donovan visits the theme of death throughout In The Magic Hour, using nature for analogy. The melancholy track “Not The Leaving” provides a consummate example: “In the wintertime/ the stars in the western sky/ flicker and fade out,” she sings. Yet she sees life as still vibrant: “But the water is shaking in the breeze/ from the high, high seas.”

She appears as part of local radio station KRML’s “Live In the Vines” concert series at Folktale Winery. Folk-punk artist Robert Sarazin Blake, whose gothic lyrics and creative country arrangements make him especially accessible to fans of Smog and Bonnie Prince Billy, opens.

AOIFE O’DONOVAN 7pm Saturday, Feb. 27. Folktale Winery, 8940 Carmel Valley Road, Carmel. $15. 293-7500; www.folktalewinery.com