Reluctant rock star Mac DeMarco comes to Big Sur with his band.

Things are going quite good for Mac DeMarco these days, so good that he’s able to devote all his time to his music. He doesn’t need a day job – or a night one, which means he’s no longer on the graveyard shift in a grocery store stocking veggies.

“I’m happy that people are listening to [my music], I’m happy that it’s being released on vinyl and that I’m able to support myself doing this,” DeMarco says.

In passing, DeMarco looks like just another Brooklyn hipster whose style – permanent bedhead, well-worn thrift store flannel shirt, apple red deck shoes – is reliant on whatever’s considered most ironic at the time. But he’s been rocking that trend since he was a wee lad tearing it up in Vancouver, way before TV on the Radio started sprouting their beards. The Canadian expat’s ever-present grin exposes his endearing, trademark-worthy gap, which has regularly ignited comparisons to MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman. He loves getting naked more than a 3-year-old running through a sprinkler. (Google for proof.) He’s a proud chain smoker and enjoys raunchy jokes – the more juvenile and dirty, the better. (When asked what’s one thing people would be surprised to learn about him, DeMarco responds: “I have a very small, child-sized penis and I have no idea how to use it.”)

In short, DeMarco is the antithesis of suave, a goofball through and through. These traits only add to his refreshing allure. But they wouldn’t register if DeMarco’s music didn’t represent some of the freshest and most exciting material to hit the streets in a long time. It thrives on surf guitar reverb, painful examinations of life sung in a I-just-woke-up, Beck-like voice and a coating of Quaaludes that ease the intensity of all the hard truths.

His 2012 full-length debut 2 was instantly championed by a host of popular media outlets, including Pitchfork, which wrote, “DeMarco has a knack for building songs where the realness of his subject matter lies just below the surface.”

Beyond his expertise in the studio, somehow, DeMarco has figured out how to make acoustic guitars rock as hard as punk, beyond pedal effects and distortion, to a point where his shows have become notorious for consensual rowdiness in the audience, including moshing.

“We have a certain reputation with our live shows at festivals over the past couple years,” he says. “It’s not premeditated like we’re getting up on stage and saying, ‘Alright, let’s get crazy.’ A lot of times kids come to the concert so excited and amped up that it just kind of happens. The kids want to have a good time and you can’t deny that.”

DeMarco also doesn’t deny the fact that he was initially freaked out by his success. He felt like there was this perpetual pressure on him to follow up 2 with something even better.

“At first, I was really stressed out and worried and didn’t want to start writing [another album] for awhile,” DeMarco says. “I didn’t even know if I wanted to do it. Eventually I thought about the reason that I make music in the first place: It’s not for music blogs or to sell records, it’s because I like doing it.”

After DeMarco eased all his post-album jitters and accompanying anxieties, he remembered how much fun he has making music and retreated to his shoebox-size home studio, which boasts a loft bed where his girlfriend sleeps while he works at the mixing board under her.

The 2014 follow-up, Salad Days, exceeded all expectations. DeMarco thinks it may have something to do with listening to a lot of Japanese synth music and Elton John while he was making the record.

The 24-year-old has crafted an authentic indie-pop classic with Salad Days that erupts with an eclectic array of everything from drowsy ballads to stick-to-your-ribs anthems. “Passing out the Pieces” skates on a creepy, ribcage-reverberating synth riff that’s simultaneously unsettling and infectious.

“I don’t really know how to play the keyboard very well so I put together a couple chords that somehow ended up working out,” DeMarco says. “It’s just me sitting on my ass trying to play the keyboard when I really have no idea. It’s unexplainable. It’s one of the reasons why making music is so fun.”

The growing recognition has almost been like a novelty for DeMarco. Fans are known for approaching the hesitant rock star to sign their cigarettes, a gesture inspired by “Ode to Viceroy,” his tribute to cheap smokes.

“I take [notoriety] as it comes and try to be as nice and polite to everyone,” he says. “It’s very flattering. Every kid that listens to my stuff is very important to me.”

Now that DeMarco’s dropped two widely praised records over the span of two years, the plan for number three is in its most infant stages.

“I don’t know,” he answers. “I think the next record is going to sound a little bit different. I’m getting more into playing keyboard and synthesizer. I also think it’ll be the same in a lot of ways: It’s just me having fun making records in my bedroom.”

A look into DeMarco’s process is revealed in a 35-minute “macumentary” called Pepperoni Playboy, available on YouTube.

MAC DEMARCO and CALVIN LOVE perform at 8pm (gates open at 7pm) Thursday, July 10, at Loma Vista Gardens, 47540 Highway 1, Big Sur. $45. www.folkyeah.com.