It was a fruitful year on Bandcamp, the vibrant online music platform used largely by independent artists and record labels to stream songs and sell merchandise. Below, I’ve listed 40 of my favorite 2022 releases available on the site, loosely organized into five stylistic categories — and with a bias toward albums you might not see on other year-end lists. To hear them, just go to bandcamp.com and search. And as always, if you find something you dig, please consider supporting the artist with a purchase.

ROOTS / FOLK / TWANG

Adeem the Artist, “White Trash Revelry”

There has been a surge of queer artists making great roots music in recent years, and Adeem the Artist’s sophomore effort — just released on Dec. 2 — has charged into the “best album of 2022” discussion at the last minute. A seventh-generation Carolinian, Adeem’s songs dig deep into the intersections of identity and class, prejudice and oppression, Southern culture, religion, white supremacy and more. “I’ve been learning our true history,” they sing at one point, “and I hate it.” Musically, Adeem is adept at bluegrass-y breakdowns, pretty Americana, twangy blues and country music that sounds like it could find its way to the mainstream in some alternate universe. Or, maybe someday, this one. A stunning work.

MORE GOOD STUFF

MJ Lenderman, “Boat Songs”

Julianna Riolina, “All Blue”

Jim Lauderdale, “Game Changer”

Mariel Buckley, “Everywhere I Used to Be”

Pigeon Pit, “Feather River Canyon Blues”

Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, “Hurricane Clarice”

Skinny Dyck, “Palace Waiting”

POP / ROCK / INDIE

Good Looks, “Bummer Year”

You can also find this Austin, Texas, band’s November show at Volcanic Theatre Pub in my list of 2022’s best concerts (which can be found elsewhere in this section). That may seem like a lot of Good Looks content, but they’re worth it, for a couple of reasons: 1. Frontman Tyler Jordan and lead guitarist Jake Ames are a joy to watch play live. The former wears a sort of bemused perma-smile that slightly disguises his brilliance as a songwriter, while the latter looks like he’s sticking a fork in an electrical outlet as he wrings barbed noise from his guitar. And 2. The seven top-shelf indie rock songs that make up “Bummer Year,” which is built from jangling guitars, leftist politics and a searching weariness that sounds spot on in 2022.

MORE GOOD STUFF

Weird Nightmare, “Weird Nightmare”

Alvvays, “Blue Rev”

Dust Star, “Open Up That Heart”

String Machine, “Hallelujah Hell Yeah”

Mike Adams at His Honest Weight, “Graphic Blandishment”

Death’s Dynamic Shroud, “Darklife”

The Smile, “A Light for Attracting Attention”

PUNK / PSYCH / METAL

Maraudeur, “Puissance 4”

This is why you should follow, via your social media of choice, Cincinnati-based Feel It Records, aka one of the best punk-focused record labels on the planet. Because the folks who run Feel It are deeply tapped into the global punk scene, and they will regularly and reliably deliver to your ears something like Maraudeur, a band based in Leipzig, Germany, but made up of women who live in various European cities. “Puissance 4” is, in my mind, perfect post-punk, packed with restless bass lines, sneering vocals, weird noises, frayed nerves and more sharp corners than a brutalist furniture showroom. (This is cheating, so I’ll whisper: When you go listen to Maraudeur, check out Smirk’s “Material” while you’re at it. Thank you, Feel It!)

MORE GOOD STUFF

Drug Church, “Hygiene”

Ghost, “Impera”

Straw Man Army, “S.O.S.”

Long Knife, “Curb Stomp Earth”

Dhidalah, “Sensoria”

Anxious, “Little Green House”

Candy, “Heaven Is Here”

SOUL / HIP-HOP / BEATS

Sudan Archives, “Natural Brown Prom Queen”

For years, the music Brittney Parks made as Sudan Archives was a tantalizing curiosity — the Los Angeles-based artist used her early EPs and first couple of albums to explore the possibilities of combining her lifelong training on the violin with hip-hop beats and psychedelic vibes. Her third full-length is a sprawling, genre-hopping album that finds Parks bouncing back and forth between pop, funk, R&B and her own brand of organic dance music, incorporating folk and global sounds along the way. This collage of styles isn’t seamless, but that’s OK because noticing the seams is part of the charm. “Natural Brown Prom Queen” not only delivers on Parks’ considerable promise, it points the way to a future of unlimited potential.

MORE GOOD STUFF

Lady Wray, “Piece of Me”

Sedale Threat, “Wrecking Crew”

High Pulp, “Pursuit of Ends”

Homeboy Sandman, “I Can’t Sell These”

Sam Prekop and John McEntire, “Sons Of”

Ivy Sole, “candid.”

Quelle Chris, “Deathfame”

OUTER SOUNDS

Kali Malone, “Living Torch”

Born in America and now based in Sweden, composer Kali Malone made her name as a musician by composing hulking, glacially paced drone works for the pipe organ. On “Living Torch,” she expands her palette, bringing conventional brass and woodwind instruments together with electronic sound machines, including an ARP 2500 synthesizer owned by French experimental music legend Éliane Radigue. Without diminishing Malone’s earlier works, the result is two drone pieces — one 15 minutes long, the other more than 18 minutes — that feel like her most organic, most texture, most varied and most engaging works yet.

MORE GOOD STUFF

Horace Andy, “Universal Rocker”

Jake Acosta, “Rehearsal Park”

Celestine Ukwu, “No Condition is Permanent”

Billow Observatory, “Stareside”

Horse Lords, “Comradely Objects”

Maya Shenfeld, “In Free Fall”

Dunza, “Star Client”