Video: Devendra Banhart, "Carmensita"

by Angela Bruno

It's safe to say that Devendra's baduizms on girlfriend Natalie Portman are in full effect. In the crackly retro-Bollywood-inspired video for "Carmensita" -- which with its whimsy, chants and fuzzy psychedelic euphoria would sound pretty perfect on The Darjeeling Ltd. soundtrack -- Portman plays the damsel in distress, Devendra the quixotic hero. Clearly dreamt up in a patchouli-induced state while perpetually summering in yonder Topanga (a place immune to the fallout of the Love Guru  -- we hope), the melodrama flows like mango lassi. "Where are you my ratty assed compadre?" she pines (via subtitles). "Fear not my sweet flower, for I have obtained the powers of the Enochian ninth circuit," he answers. But that's probably just pillow talk for those two anyway.