Beginning with their 2018 self-titled debut, West Virginia-based outfit Hello June have honed a sprawling and resonant blend of Americana, folk, and indie rock. Singer/songwriter Sarah Rudy says she saw that first album as a series of abstract poems, but the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort Artifacts sees them expanding outward, showing new stylistic shades and revealing a more open and vulnerable form.

Rudy uses the band’s new album to explore newly intimate narratives of addiction, grief, h...