A former member of the proto-metal quartet Parchman Farm, Allyson Baker has found her sound and voice with Dirty Ghosts. With partner Aesop Rock on beat programming and her former band’s bassist, Carson Binks, fleshing out the rhythms, she wrote and recorded with an emphasis on averting any specific genre. Metal Moon succeeds at innovating indie pop while leaving vestiges of Baker’s grimy rock roots exposed. “Ropes That Way” opens with raw drum textures that somehow play both airtight and casually loose as a distorted Gibson SG coolly contrasts her creamy vocal tone. In quieter moments, Baker sounds mysteriously androgynous, but she can dip into guttural growls reminiscent of a Runaways-era Joan Jett—especially in the harder-driving “19 in ‘71,” which grooves on a mechanized “Cherry Bomb” strut. And yet nothing sounds over-tried. In the standout cut “Shout It In,” neither the infusion of dub-echoed riffs nor Binks’ spooky bass line upstages the clinching melody. Metal Moon is a momentary snapshot of uncanny musical chemistry.