With a name that might evoke a five-piece indie rock band with a sassy female singer, Milk Carton Kids are, in fact, a Los Angeles–based Americana folk duo. Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale (who have each released beautiful solo albums worth seeking out on iTunes) play acoustic guitars and are a perfect pair: Ryan brings a Jayhawks twang and edge to Pattengale's gentler Paul Simon–esque flavor, and together their voices produce a magical synergy. Prologue is their first studio album, and it’s full of songs both soothing and bittersweet, scented with longing and reluctant introspection. While one guitar is gently strummed, the other is delicately picked; notes flutter like falling leaves on a gust of regret or hope. The lonely road leading from the aching, gorgeous opener, “Michigan,” to the fragile “Des Moines, IA,” is dotted with haunting specters. “There by Your Side” glows with melancholic sadness. The lovely harmonies of “New York” rise and fall with something like determination, while a genteel hootenanny erupts on the defiant “I Still Want a Little More.”