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Through the Devil Softly is the second studio album from Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions. Recorded over a two-year period between 2007 and 2009 in Northern California and Ireland, the album was released by Nettwerk on 28 September 2009 (see 2009 in music) - eight years after the release of their previous studio album, Bavarian Fruit Bread.

The set won critical acclaim for its dark and complex production, with the band employing unorthodox techniques such as sudden and abrupt time signature shifts, coupled with frequent use of "irrational" measure lengths. The production also utilized the use of intricate musical arrangements, with several songs on the album, such as "Sets the Blaze", "Thinking Like That", "Trouble" and "Blue Bird", featuring no discernible choruses.

A cover of the Syd Barrett track "Golden Hair", from his 1970 album The Madcap Laughs, was released with the March 2010 issue of Mojo magazine. Originally an acoustic song set to the words of James Joyce's poem "Lean Out of the Window", the track was radically altered and rearranged into a psychedelic rock piece, extending the originals duration from under two-minutes to over 6:30. On August 10, 2010, the song was released as a non-album single, backed with the b-side "Suddenly Beside You." The track served as the closing encore for every Warm Inventions show since its release.

After the release of Bavarian Fruit Bread in 2001, Sandoval performed both lead and background vocals on projects by numerous other artists, most notably lead vocals on "Killing Smile" and "Help Yourself" on the 2002 album Scorpio Rising by Death In Vegas and the "Hope Sandoval Version" of Air's "Cherry Blossom Girl" in 2004. Sandoval also contributed backing vocals to the track "Angels' Share" on the 2004 self-titled album by Vetiver. As well as these, the vocals found on the album version of Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You" were used to create a new remix of the song by Richard X. The song, which also features Jarvis Cocker from the band Pulp, was re-titled "Into You" and released on his 2003 album Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1.

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