it no handler for given file type `flac'
I do not have a specific answer for the error as I do not use Homebrew however as a workaround I've downloaded SoX - Sound exchange from SourceForge.net unzipped the download file and cd sox-14.4.2 and then ./play &lt;pathname_to.flac&gt; and it played the .flac file just fine.

As requested in the comments I tested trimming a .flac file and this too worked as expected and the trimmed file played fine, (sans the trimmed 30 seconds of course).

To ensure the downloaded SoX worked independently of other installed audio software I tested it on a clean build of OS X 10.10 and SoX worked as expected.  (BTW I originally tested under OS X 10.8.5)

Since Homebrew does the installing and just downloading directly from SourceForge.net does not, I copied the play, rec, soxi (aliases) and the sox binary to /usr/local/bin as it's an appropriate location for third-party binaries and makes the commands directly available in a Terminal as its location is in the $PATH.