Kacey Musgraves’s Expanding Universe

After two wry country albums and a Grammy-sweeping breakthrough, pop stardom is calling for Kacey Musgraves. Will she answer?

NASHVILLE — Kacey Musgraves made her new album in a garage studio buzzing with domestic chaos. On an August afternoon, the 33-year-old singer and songwriter arrived there to find a basketball rolled into the driveway, tiny swimsuits drying on the porch and a spaniel, Bean, rooting around the percussion section for a stick. “I don’t feel self-conscious out here,” Musgraves said, leaning into a snug couch next to a Himalayan salt lamp. “You can try stuff and if it sucks, it’s fine.” Musgraves was joined by a couple of dads, the producers Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk. Tashian, the owner of the studio, known as the Royal Plum, wore an all-Patagonia outfit and offered room-temperature lemon water from a glass carafe; Fitchuk settled in a puff of smoke, his center-parted blonde hair mingling with the beads around his neck, a tequila soda jangling in his hand. Musgraves drifted easily around the space in plaid trousers and an enigmatic little smile, a kind of yee-haw Mona Lisa. The trio first assembled at the Royal Plum to make her 2018 album, “Golden Hour.” They tried stuff, it did not suck and the outcome was better than fine: “Golden Hour,” an album of psychedelic-kissed folk, fingerpicked country yarns and a shimmering dip into disco, won four 2019 Grammy Awards, including album of the year, and lifted Musgraves’s profile from cult country artist to mainstream contender.