he would be dissolving Fruit Bats. That month they played what was to be their farewell show at a sold out Aladdin Theatre in Portland, OR. The following year Johnson released an album under the name EDJ, which he has subsequently described as "essentially a Fruit Bats album." Reformation 2015–2018 Johnson had described the retirement of the Fruit Bats name as "a career stalling move" and in 2015 announced on Instagram that he was reviving the band, declaring "I miss these old songs" via a handwritten letter. That same year My Morning Jacket had invited Johnson's EDJ project to open several tour dates. Johnson instead asked if he could bring the reformed Fruit Bats instead. The tour was a major breakthrough for the band as a live act. In 2016 Fruit Bats released their sixth official full-length LP, Absolute Loser, via newly formed Los Angeles-based label Easy Sound. It was the band's first release in five years. The album featured the single "Humbug Mountain Song," which has garnered over fifty-nine million streams on Spotify. The accompanying comedic music video for that song featured Johnson as a modern-day frontiersman fighting a bear. The band's tours on the album featured performances at Nelsonville Music Festival, Green Man Festival, Newport Folk Festival, and Pickathon. Absolute Loser was voted as one of the best albums of 2016 by Paste Magazine. Merge Records and breakthrough Fruit Bats signed to North Carolina-based independent label Merge Records in 2018. Also in 2018, Johnson formed the folk group Bonny Light Horseman with Josh Kaufman and Anais Mitchell. Their subsequent debut album was nominated for two Grammy Awards. In 2019 Fruit Bats’ Merge debut Gold Past Life was released. It charted on Billboard's Heatseeker and Independent album charts. It features several songs which have become streaming hits and fan favorites, including "The Bottom of It," "A Lingering Love," and "Cazadera." It was the last appearance on a Fruit Bats record by Neal Casa before his death. Of the album, Variety Magazine said, "there won’t be many albums in 2019 with as many quotable, cut-to-the-marrow lines as this one has." Gold Past Life was voted the seventh best album of 2019 by No Depression Magazine. Fruit Bats’ 2020 album The Pet Parade was produced by Johnson's Bonny Light Horseman bandmate Josh Kaufman, and made remotely in different cities in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The title of the