Tank And The Bangas' new album comes on like a brass band marching through a dreamscape, at times radiant, at others loose-limbed, but designed and determined to raise the heat anywhere it gets played. Fresh off their Grammy win for The Heart, The Mind, The Soul, frontwoman Tarriona “Tank” Ball sounds liberated here, steering the New Orleans group into the final chapter of the trilogy that began with Green Balloon and expanded with Red Balloon. But don’t expect another color-coded sequel. Ball has made it clear: this is the closing curtain on the balloon era. No “Purple Balloon” waiting in the wings. The carnival tent is coming down, and the band is already eyeing stranger skies.

Executive-produced by Austin Brown and recorded largely at The Complex Studios in Los Angeles, The Last Balloon is a live-wire, you can practically hear sweat forming on the studio walls. The grooves bounce between classic R&B, spoken-word confessions, and jazz-funk rhythms that zigzag with the kind of joyful unpredictability that has become the band’s trademark.

Tracks like “Move,” featuring Lucky Daye, do just what the title implies, while “No Invite” struts with playful swagger. Then there’s “Nighttime,” one of the album’s emotional standouts. Ball calls it her “spacey, reflective record,” and it floats with late night vulnerability, sampling Kindred The Family Soul while throwing in an appearance from her younger brother that gives the song a special heartbeat beneath the cosmic haze. The guest list reads like a dream jam session assembled by destiny: Ledisi, Jelly Joseph, Iman Omari, and Tane Runo all leave fingerprints across the record. Yet the album never feels overcrowded.

Tank And The Bangas have found themselves in the middle of a remarkable rise since winng NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2017, transforming from beloved underground eccentrics into Grammy-nominated innovators. If Green Balloon introduced the world to their imagination and Red Balloon flew even higher, The Last Balloon feels like the well-deserved victory lap. For Tank And The Bangas, the balloons may be gone after this. But the party? No doubt that will continue.