From Animal Collective's psychedelic collages to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' punk disco, electronic music has been invading the indie-rock world lately, as bands mix dance-floor science with do-it-yourself hooks and histrionics. Now please welcome Michael Angelakos, the 21-year-old drama queen at the core of Passion Pit. Dude's got a window-rattling falsetto, and his hyperemotional electro pop comes complete with romantic back story (a Valentine's Day gift tape to a girlfriend, which became last year's Chunk of Change EP, earned him a label deal and sold-out club gigs).

Passion Pit's full-length debut proves he isn't fronting: It's a shiny bouquet of synth-pop roses, with perfumed Eighties keyboard whooshes and modern stutter beats crooking a finger toward the dance floor. Angelakos takes full advantage of his resources: There are horns, a string section, even an elementary-school choir. But what makes the record are his loose beats, shamelessly fruity melodies and breathless little-boy vocals, all pushing skyward. "Eyes as Candles" cops Abba's vocal sugar, and "Swimming in the Flood" has the smooth sad-sackness of a good Phil Collins ballad. All the endorphin-mongering can get dizzying, but it's offset by charmingly tortured lyrics. "You've left me shimmering/Like diamond wedding rings!" he declares, ecstatically heartbroken, on the dulcimer-decorated "Moth's Wings" — a song that, like others, recalls Ben Gibbard's electro-weepy side project, the Postal Service. Like all disco divas, Angelakos knows sadness and musical ecstasy can go great together. "My pity song/Hovering on your front lawn," he implores, as if on bended knee under the window. OK, already: We're coming down!