Ingrid Lucia has spent a lot of late nights listen to trains go by from her Gentilly-area window. “We have all kinds of sounds in this city—the calliope on the river, the music. But for some reason, in the middle of my life I get inspired by trains.” The sound spoke to her of freedom and wanderlust—the latter the title of her new album, and the theme of her life over the past few years.

The road to this particular album...