Acoustic in Lola's Room, bands in the Crystal Ballroom, and your plans for the weekend—all set. by Robert Ham For all our complaints about music streaming platforms, you could argue that they deserve a little credit for revealing the flimsiness of our once-rigid borders around music styles. The breakdown of those genre walls has been felt far beyond playlists and record collections and now ripples even deeper into the lineups of genre-specific events like the upcoming Portland’s Folk Festival.  The core of this two-day event, which goes down on January 17 and 18 at Crystal Ballroom and Lola’s Room, remains heartfelt songs of personal and social upheaval, primarily played on acoustic instruments. But organizers Scott Gilmore and Sarah Vitort—best known for the music that they make as Fox & Bones—are thoughtfully and wonderfully stretching the definition of folk to include everything from the psych-pop sounds of Presidio to singer Arietta Ward’s blistering funk and R&B. “We want to create a wide berth around what folk music is,” Gilmore said. “I feel that folk music is about the intention set behind the music. It’s about saying something like, ‘What are you trying to express in your music?’ We want to make sure not to cut anyone off from that.” The widening scope of the PFF is also reflective of the event’s growth. Inaugurated back in 2018, the festival began as an one-day endurance test, running for over 12 hours at the White Eagle Saloon. Since then, it's expanded to as many as three days and grown comfortably into the much bigger confines of the Crystal.  This year’s installment of the PFF has scaled back a bit, keeping the music to just two days, but respecting the continued growth and scope by wisely making use of the two performance spaces in the same building.  “It felt like we could actually invest in the acoustic artists a little more,” said Gilmore. “With Lola’s, we can have more acoustic and singer-songwriter acts, and then have our bands up on the Crystal Ballroom stage. We should also have music going nonstop. After one set is done, the next set can start immediately on the stage above or below it. This is a way more relaxed way to hold an event. We want it to be a positive experience for everyone involved.”  If you want to guarantee your own positive experience, here are five can’t-miss acts playing at this year’s Portland’s Folk Festival: Blair Borax  Opening the festival this year is Blair Borax, a lesser known gem of the local community. Her most recent album Tender Lately spotlights the jazzy twang of her voice—think a smoothed-out Karen Dalton—and the easygoing allure of her material that floods the senses with fully fleshed-out arrangements, featuring piano, trumpet, and drums that bend toward disco without falling out of the folk realm completely. (Fri Jan 17, 6 pm) Rainbow Girls  According to Gilmore, he knew that the 2025 edition of Portland’s Folk Festival was going to be great because Bay-Area trio Rainbow Girls had already agreed to return, soon after their set in 2024. Closing out the first night of the PFF, the group will surely break hearts and heal souls with their close harmonies and unflinching lyrics—we haven’t felt this sort of magic since the heyday of Low. (Fri Jan 17, 10:40 pm) Sage Christie  A previous winner of PFF”s annual songwriting contest, Sage Christie returns to the festival after recently relocating to Asheville, North Carolina—where they have further honed a delicate sound that recalls Fiona Apple’s quieter moments. But it’s their lyrics that sets them apart from peers and contemporaries. Christie unpacks both personal moments (“Orange Ice Cream,” a song about the death of their abuelita is especially moving) and large scale concerns with pointed detail and rich language. (Sat Jan 18, 5:15 pm) Isabeau Waia’u Walker Already a fixture of the Portland scene through her work as a backup vocalist for Y La Bamba, Isabeau Waia’u Walker has distinguished herself across three albums that apply rich coats of psychedelic color to the usual folk-pop approach. Walker’s latest Heavyweights is, by turns, triumphal and despairing, as she reflects on her sometimes losing battles with personal and cultural demons galore. (Sat Jan 18, 5:45 pm) Thunderstorm Artis Yes, Thunderstorm Artis was a finalist on the 18th season of The Voice, but don’t hold that against him. This young artist’s work transcends the usual closing credits bluster that shows like The Voice usually truck in, through his music's generous amounts of bluesy grit and grounded humility. The way that Artis managed to keep those qualities alive even after surviving the churn of reality TV is something worth celebrating and honoring. (Sat Jan 18, 9:50 pm)