Calexico manages to bring it all together

Tucson-based Calexico has to be one of the few acts that can reference Johnny Cash and Nina Simone in the same song and actually manage to show a kinship with both.

On Thursday at the El Rey Theatre, the sextet played a borderless fusion that extended well beyond our neighbor to the south, blending elements of country, folk, jazz, surf, mariachi, Middle Eastern, blues and more into shifting, atmospheric numbers such as the mournful-to-cathartic “Across the Wire.”

During the hour-plus show, singer-guitarist Joey Burns, who met drummer John Convertino while living in Los Angeles in the ‘90s, also dropped the names of local indie hero Mike Watt and ‘60s icon Arthur Lee of Love. Before (and after) forming Calexico, the duo had a varied musical history, including stints with trippy alt-country group Giant Sand and lounge-revivalists Friends of Dean Martinez.

Selections from Calexico’s new album, “Feast of Wire,” at times sprawled longer than the recorded versions as the band built up gradually and became frenetic, started boisterously and turned psychedelic, or opened noirishly and got surreal.

The group still created its signature Ennio Morricone-esque cinemascapes, but Burns’ warm voice was more often out front, giving some tunes a stronger “pop” flavor, if not exactly in a Top-40 way.

The group’s rendition of Love’s “Alone Again Or” emphasized this, complete with swirling lights enveloping the players in a kaleidoscope of bright horns, starkly baroque guitar and hushed vocals.

Bits of dub and raga burst in and receded, as did the musicians.

They were sometimes bathed in blazing light, other times shadows against film-clip projections of vintage cowboy films, abstract cityscape grids and galaxies spinning into and out of existence.

Cosmic, indeed.