Harcourt’s Sounds: Grand but Out of Their Element

Big things are sometimes best kept in small packages. And the pop music of Ed Harcourt is very big: ambitious, multilayered work, sometimes quiet, often festive. On stage it can have a naked emotionalism that is sometimes lost on his debut album, “Here Be Monsters.”

All those elements were in play at the El Rey Theatre on Wednesday at the British singer-songwriter’s first headlining show in Los Angeles. But a smaller setting might have played better to his strengths, giving proper intimacy to the small musical accents of Harcourt and his four-piece band. As a largely unknown talent to American listeners, Harcourt played to a room only about half full.

But the small crowd was no reflection of the music’s quality. Harcourt shares some of the musical flamboyance of Rufus Wainwright, along with a mischievous sense of humor. Switching from piano to guitar, he was alternately frivolous and introspective, while slightly disheveled in a corduroy suit and tie.

“It’s a beautiful night,” Harcourt declared, typically casual and chummy between songs. “Anyone feeling frisky?”

The song “Something in My Eye” drew on his love of richly arranged pop music, but he was just as comfortable picking up an acoustic guitar for “Sleepyhead,” a dreamy new song and another understated lullaby, as the band added soft, lush layers of sound.

Forlorn trumpet notes accompanied “Hanging With the Wrong Crowd,” and Harcourt had as much ease with darker, moodier passages, closing the night with a selection of songs that touched on genres stretching from metal to pop, all of it joyfully, if casually held together by the grand scale of his music.