On ‘3.15.20,’ Childish Gambino is the anxious, freaked-out, no-chill rock star we need right now

What’s Donald Glover worried about right now? Indeed, the only thing he doesn’t seem freaked out by on “3.15.20” is the global health crisis that erupted after the record was completed, though even that seemed to play into its rollout: Two Sunday mornings ago, on the date indicated in the album’s title, Glover’s new music appeared without warning as a looped stream on the website DonaldGloverPresents.com; hours later, after fans hailed the 12-song collection as a welcome distraction from the coronavirus, it disappeared just as quickly — one more mystery in an age of escalating uncertainty. In “19.10” — the remaining songs are titled after the point at which they begin in the album’s 57-minute runtime — Glover remembers being prepared by his father, who died in late 2018, for the heavy reality of black excellence: “To be beautiful is to be hunted,” he sings in a voice streaked with both pain and pride. “32.22” layers Glover’s chanting vocals, processed nearly beyond recognition, atop tribal drums that recall his longtime producer Ludwig Göransson’s score for “Black Panther.” In “47.48,” which nods to the chattering, hand-played soul music of Wonder’s “Talking Book,” Glover uses an appearance by his son Legend to punctuate a touching homily on the importance of self-love at a moment of fear and distrust. And despite all the darkness the singer alludes to, that soothing quality is actually what ends up defining “3.15.20.” There’s something oddly reassuring about these songs — not just “12.38,” a laidback R&B slow jam about a drug-addled sexual encounter, or the sweetly romantic “24.19,” but all 12 of them, even those in which Glover sounds close to overwhelmed by his many misgivings.