What 2014 lacked in universally beloved albums, it more than made up in breakthrough artists. Across genres, it became the year of DIY. Major labels did their best work by reissuing and amplifying self-released tracks. Little indies became big things when they captured the feeling of homegrown communities. Co-signs counted for a lot. Eyes and ears were available to anyone with an engaging identity and a signature sound—or in some cases just a signature line, primed for Vine.

By the time that iLoveMakonnen broke through, early this summer, he'd self-released ten full projects and dozens of music videos to virtually zero acclaim. How he was overlooked for so long, in a world of countless music-covering media properties, we'll never know. But it benefited his work: by evolving in obscurity, like a bug on a desert island, Makonnen arrived at a form that was truly original and wholly his own. His phrasing is loosey-goosey, his vocal tone audacious, his ideas coming from odd angles. Shortly after the discovery of his music came the discovery of his accidental role in the death of a childhood friend, and his subsequent five years of house arrest; with that backstory, he attained the status of myth. Even more than a new artist to acknowledge, this was a person to actively root for.

"Wishin You Well" hardly resembles the songs that first won Makonnen attention. No club will ever go up to its ruminating, 30-second sitar intro. The molly business is beside the point. But this weird one, produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, might be the most universal, and its the most undeniably his in a year that was undeniably his. In all of Makonnen's music, he wears his feelings on his sleeve, and the meandering freestyle of "Wishin You Well" is his greatest evocation of love. Recalling time with a woman who spurned him, his details are strange and vivid: they crash a yellow Corolla, meet rattlesnakes that don't bite. By sticking to the idiosyncratic, even at the expense of a coherent plot, he lands on something that's relatable because it feels so real. Like many relationships, and even more like their heartbroken retellings, this song never reaches a climax or conclusion so much as it trails into confusion and nothingness: I moved out to Reno, Arizona/ I mean, it was Reno, Nevada, he stumbles at the end, I've been drinking these things from the bottles/ I can't remember. "Wishin You Well" captures the randomness and richness of being alive, and in the very fact of its release, after Makonnen finally found the footing of a career, it's proof that life's worth soldiering on for. —Duncan Cooper

Read iLoveMakonnen's FADER feature story.