Shannon Stephens

A natural at crafting comforting, acoustic-based folk songs, indie songwriter Shannon Stephens started her career in the '90s while she attended Hope College in Michigan. After getting her feet wet as the leader of Marzuki -- a folky group whose members included Matt Haseltine, Jamie Kempkers, and a young Sufjan Stevens -- she began pursuing a solo career in 1999, with her former bandmates all launching their own projects as well. While Stevens made his solo debut with 2000's Sun Came -- the first album in his long, illustrious discography of chamber pop records -- Stephens fi...