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Bandcamp is an online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. It’s also a vibrant virtual community teeming with interesting sounds just waiting to be discovered. Each week, I’ll highlight three releases available on the site that are well worth your time and attention. If you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase.

NOTE: Last Friday, Bandcamp waived its revenue share of sales to help musicians impacted by COVID-19, and music lovers responded by spending $7.1 million on music and merch — up $2.8 million from a similar effort in March. If you contributed to that total: Good job! Musicians need your support right now. You’ll have another chance June 5 and July 3 when Bandcamp does the same thing.

Bad Bunny

“YHLQMDLG”

badbunnypr.bandcamp.com/releases

Generally speaking, Bandcamp is a platform for the little guy. You won’t find many of the music world’s biggest stars there. Which is why it was surprising to see “Yo Hago Lo Que Me Da La Gana” — the second solo album from Puerto Rican singer and rapper Bad Bunny — pop up in late February, just weeks after he performed with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira during the Super Bowl’s halftime show. If you’re unfamiliar with Bad Bunny, one spin through “YHLQMDLG” will tell you why he’s a global superstar: He is endlessly charismatic, artistically ambitious, unabashedly playful and respectful of his stylistic forebears. Oh yeah … and he has killer taste in Latin trap and reggaeton beats. This is party music of the highest order, whether or not you speak Spanish.

Eola

“Dang”

leavingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dang

Edwin White is best known as half of the Florida-based psych-pop brother act Tonstartssbandht. When he’s not weirding out over there, though, he’s extra-weirding out under the name Eola. Released in 2016, Dang is a set of nine ancient (or ancient-feeling) a cappella gospel songs reimagined and reconstituted by White into warped, fuzzy future-hymns. Using looping technology and vocal effects, he stretches and layers these tunes into a sort of mirage-like state while retaining the depth and tenderness that made them special in the first place, and the end results are slightly disorienting and uniquely moving.

Aktor

“Placebo”

aktor.bandcamp.com/album/placebo

If you prefer your heavy metal have more hooks than howls and growls, Chicagoan Chris “Professor” Black is one of the genre’s must-follow figures. For years, the guy has been cranking out head-banging hard rock that’s unafraid of a catchy melody, whether it’s with his old band Dawnbringer or more recently with High Spirits and Aktor, his collaboration with members of the Finnish experimental band Circle. To be honest, Placebo is metal in lineage and tone (“dark”) only — sonically speaking, it splits the difference between the street-tough rock of Thin Lizzy and the peculiar synth-pop-punk of Devo. Unless you hate fist-pumpin’ fun, that’s a pretty sweet spot to land.

— Ben Salmon is a Bend-based music journalist and host of Left Of The Dial, which airs 8-10 p.m. Thursdays on KPOV, 88.9 FM and streams at kpov.org. You can find him on Twitter at @bcsalmon or email him at bensalmon@gmail.com.