“Speaking up, speaking out—that's a theme that will always be there for me,” Garbus tells me in a New York City cafe one brutally cold recent day. "But I still have that hesitation: Can I really tell you the truth?” She's just stepped off a West Coast red-eye and is due back on a return flight in a few hours. But despite working on four hours sleep, her eyes are alive and eager; three years after the release of her brilliant 2011 album w h o k i l l, she’s ready to leap back into the fray.