He has won two Juno awards and has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Australia, having released 5 studio LPs and numerous EPs and singles.

With a bank loan and a small community of musicians who would offer cheap or free sessions, Mangan recorded Postcards & Daydreaming in the summer of 2005 with producer Daniel Elmes and good friend Simon Kelly.

In July 2007, Vancouver-based independent record label File Under: Music picked up the LP and re-released the album with new artwork and an extra track, "Ash Babe".

As the ensemble worked toward a third LP, they began collaborating and touring with a large group of musicians who would sub in and out of the band including trumpeter JP Carter (Fond of Tigers, Destroyer), violinist Jesse Zubot (Fond of Tigers, Hawksley Workman, Tanya Tagaq), pianist Tyson Naylor and cellist Peggy Lee (Mary Margaret O'Hara, Wayne Horvitz, Veda Hille).

Mangan asked Seattle's Eyvind Kang (Bill Frisell, Beck, Laurie Anderson) to write orchestral arrangements for the forthcoming recordings.

Throughout the process, the ensemble decided to release the album under the moniker Dan Mangan + Blacksmith, highlighting and finally labelling the creative contributions from Grdina, Loewen, Walsh, Naylor, Carter and Zubot.

The album featured production and mixing by Drew Brown (Beck, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Blonde Redhead),[12] with producer Simone Felice (Lumineers, Vance Joy, Jade Bird)[13] producing two songs ("Fool For Waiting" and "Troubled Mind"), which were mixed and engineered by Ryan Hewitt (Lumineers, Avett Brothers, Vance Joy).

"[14] Feibel goes on to say, "The sleeper hit here is "Lay Low," a song about taking time for yourself that, fittingly, features almost nothing but Mangan's own voice — and even then it's barely more than a whisper.

It’s about unanswerable questions and kindness and friendship and fear.” In April 2019, Mangan, "the man known as the nicest guy on the Vancouver music scene" performed two songs ("Troubled Mind" and "Just Fear") from the album on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

[17] He followed up in July with "Fire Escape", the video for which starred actor Steven Ogg as a personification of a self-critical inner voice taunting and tormenting Mangan.

Dan became a father during this time and scored a soundtrack with Jesse Zubot for the feature film Hector and the Search for Happiness (Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike, Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgård, Jean Reno, directed by Peter Chelsom).

Between the Club Meds and More or Less album cycles, Mangan scored the music for the Netflix animated show, Hilda, including the ending theme, as well as the CBC/AMC mini-series, Unspeakable.

Mangan, under the label Madic Records, (an imprint of Arts & Crafts Productions) has released LPs by acts such as Walrus and Astral Swans.

[22] Mangan has also recorded and produced works for Astral Swans, including two tracks on 2015's Good People Rock and 2018's Strange Prison.

Mangan and his business partner Laura Simpson appeared in a Season 17 episode of Dragons' Den, pitching for an investment in his online concert platform Side Door.

They've shared stages with Father John Misty, The Walkmen, Japandroids, Jeff Mangum, Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Missy Elliott, Kendrick Lamar, Lucinda Williams, Broken Social Scene, Tune-Yards, Arlo Guthrie, José González, Junip, Stars, Marina And The Diamonds, Phox, Sharon Van Etten, Run The Jewels, Hot Chip, Cake, Metric, The Decemberists, Julian Casablancas, Timber Timbre, Sarah Harmer, The Broken Family Band, Elliott Brood, The Acorn, Alison Krauss, Howe Gelb, Jackson Browne, Bowerbirds, The head and the heart, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Blind Pilot, Patrick Watson, Jenn Grant, Brett Dennen, KD Lang, Mother Mother, Great Lake Swimmers, Basia Bulat, Veda Hille, Hannah Georgas, Charlie Parr, Bear's Den, Hey Rosetta!, The Shins, Sam Roberts Band, Jason Collett, Bahamas, Rich Aucoin, Zeus, Macklemore, Vampire Weekend, City & Colour, Yukon Blonde, Sondre Lerche, Warpaint, Other Lives, Suuns, Spoon, Tegan and Sara, Lucius.

[1] At sixteen, Mangan started a band called Basement Suite with some classmates and played gigs at local community centres.