Regina Spektor writes the kind of crazy-quilt confessionals we used to hear a lot from 1990s alt-rockers but don't get enough of these days. The Russian-born Lower East Side piano punk has the European yelp of Björk, the loopiness of Fiona Apple, the too-much-information torridness of Tori Amos and the slanted critical eye of Liz Phair. But none of those girls ever interrupted a song about long-term commitment to uncork a flurry of dolphin noises, as Spektor does on "Folding Chair," one of the stranger — and catchier — moments on her excellent third major-label record.

The 29-year-old singer-songwriter's 2004 disc, Soviet Kitsch, flaunted her exotic Old World accent on stark, ranting torch songs that followed a boozy logic. 2006's Begin to Hope had fuller production and great one-liners about being a doomed New York romantic, like a Joni Mitchell for the post-Strokes era. Produced by Jeff Lynne, Garret "Jacknife" Lee, Mike Elizondo and David Kahne, Far matches Kitsch's rococo flow with the follow-up's pop smarts. On the jaunty, hip-hop-tinged "Dance Anthem of the 80's," she wanders lonely streets with her slip hanging out, "like a drunk, but not." "Laughing With" begins as a meditation on God's wicked sense of humor and ends collapsing in an existential freakout over a soft beat and weeping cello. Spektor is a woman who doesn't need much excuse to have an emotional Chernobyl (in one song, it's finding a wallet with a Blockbuster card in it). But she's also the rare screwball who gets more universal as she gets weirder.