Maral is a Los Angeles-based artist that synthesizes forward-thinking electronic music with samples culled from her deep library of Iranian folk, pop, and classical music. “Hope’s Return” is a mysterious bedroom drifter that, in under two minutes, moves fueled by a crunchy, is-it-acoustic drum loop and some ethereal, hard-to-place vocal snatches. The release also has a beautiful video by the experimental animator Danski Tang. In it, four-legged animals and animal-human hybrids run along alien terrain, giving the song the narrative burst alluded to in its title. It’s Homeward Bound, by way of Macromedia Flash.