Josh Garrels’ confessionals are testaments to the Christian mystic Thomas Merton’s belief that union with God is to be found in the ups and downs of daily life. Born in northwest Indiana at the dawn of the ’80s, Garrels discovered his love of music while singing to his mother in the family laundry room before a punk-rock phase in his teens instilled in him a sense of rebellion. Rather than conform to CCM trends, Garrels honed an outsider mix of indie folk, hip-hop, and chamber pop that possesses all the intimacy of contemplative prayer. If his initial recordings from the early 2000s brim with the self-assurance of youth, then later albums like 2011’s Love & War & the Sea In Between and 2015’s Home capture his Van Morrison-inspired falsetto meditating on the spiritual questions that come with growing up, getting married, and eventually raising children.