Moses Sumney has emerged in the past year as an independent artist to watch, riding a wave of word-of-mouth praise based on hushed recordings and dynamic live performances. Raised between Southern California and Ghana, he was so shy growing up that he would write songs avidly but hide them inside his mattress. After moving to Los Angeles to attend UCLA at age 20, he taught himself to play the guitar and gingerly started performing on campus, writing soul-infused folk tunes using guitar and layered arrangements built on loop pedals.