The Point.

Mdou Moctar’s richly layered protest music has brought West African psychedelic rock to a new generation of American audiences for over a decade. While on tour in 2023, the band became stranded in the United States after the president of Niger was deposed. They wrote Funeral for Justice in response while waiting to return home. 2025’s Tears of Injustice reimagines those songs acoustically – though stripped of the amplified guitar solos so characteristic of their sound, it remains undeniably them. Ahead of Levitation, the quartet joins local electrified funk trio the Point to kick off the festival’s varied lineup of psychedelic acts. – Caroline Drew