Esperanza Spalding’s latest work, TRIANGLE, is a collaborative three-song suite made in part to launch the Songwrights Apothecary Lab. As the pandemic pressed down last year, Spalding reached out to music therapists and neuroscientists in search of restorative musical elements to add to her music. “formwela 3,” the suite’s restive closer, captures a moment when interpersonal aggression finally calms. According to Spalding, it extends an opportunity “for releasing the heaviness of a seemingly endless blue state.”

Like most of the suite, “formwela 3” has a roaming, improvisational feel, with Spalding’s hummed vocals mingling between fitful percussion, strings, and horns from co-producers Phoelix, Raphael Saadiq, and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. “Everybody’s density up on me/Everybody’s heavy with the zombie consciousness causing this stress,” Spalding sings, her vocals multiplied to simulate the sense of disorder. She lifts the burden of unintentionally taking on others’ negative energy by resetting her approach: Just as Spalding’s harmonies and the accompanying horns coil up with tension, they quickly dissipate, with a metronomic piano easing her back to peace of mind. “formwela 3” is curative in its deliberate pace, ending with a devotional chant that loops back to the suite’s first section to offer a direct balm for deflated spirits.