Julie Byrne is surrounded by dangerous sea creatures yet she remains calm. Walking through Manhattan’s Museum of Natural History, she discusses the organisms on display with a professorly air. “It lives in some of the deepest, darkest depths of the ocean,” she says casually, pointing out a particular breed of octopus. “It has a symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria that live in its tentacles.” For most New Yorkers, this museum is a wholesome novelty, saved for visiting family or tourist friends. But for Byrne, it’s a rare sanctuary.

Julie Byrne: “Follow My Voice” (via SoundCloud)

“To me, this city’s hell,” the 26-year-old sings in “Follow My Voice,” the opening track of her gorgeously spare new album, Not Even Happiness. “I was made for the green, made to be alone.” But, amid the screaming sirens and bustling humanity of New York, Byrne’s music acts as a kind of balm, offering a refuge of intimacy and earthiness. It earns its tranquility. Upon moving to the city last year following an itinerant period that had her bouncing all over the country, Byrne quickly fell in love with Central Park, taking a job as a seasonal ranger. “Part of the training and part of the mission is to be in service to the public,” she says about the position. “That was the first time that I really ever felt that I had a place here.”

Speaking about her work as a ranger, Byrne is passionate and excitable. She tells an adorable story about a rescued duck named Suitcase. She fondly recalls the corner of the park where they once discovered a sleeping family of raccoons. She speaks fluently about the diversity of trees lining the sidewalk. “I felt that it was part of my job to uncover secrets that the more senior rangers already knew and understood and anticipated,” she tells me. Hearing her talk, you get the sense that Byrne’s perception of the natural world is a reflection of her interior geography, and that the more she learns, the closer she can come to finding a sense of internal peace.

Julie Byrne: "I Live Now as a Singer" (via SoundCloud)

The songs on Not Even Happiness came to Byrne slowly over the span of four years. As a record, it’s part-travelogue (“Natural Blue” describes a sunset in Colorado, while “Melting Grid” details time spent in the Pacific Northwest) and part emotional autobiography. “I’ve been seeking God within,” she sings at one point. When I ask her whether this lyric is reflective of her spiritual beliefs, Byrne laughs. “Exactly, I’m only interested in myself.”

Byrne is as patient as the music she makes, expressing her thoughts slowly and eloquently. It makes sense that her influences are mostly poets, particularly American writers like Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Patchen, and Adrienne Rich. Byrne even has a habit of slipping entire memorized verses into conversation. Outside the museum, we discuss the death of Leonard Cohen, an artist whose influence on Byrne is apparent in both her nimble fingerpicking and her empathetic lyrics. Before we part ways, she quietly recalls the opening stanza of his poem “Travel.” “I often thought of travelling penniless to some mud throne/Where a master might instruct me how to plot my life away from pain,” she recites carefully, pausing before the final three words. “To love alone.”