Era Extraña received generally positive reviews from critics, a number of whom called it more focused, tight, and cohesive than Psychic Chasms, while some praised the songcraft.

Palomo first saw the Voyetra-8 in the music video for New Order's "The Perfect Kiss" (1985), saying that he was amazed by its appearance: "It's this bizarre, kaleidoscope interface with these knobs, and it's really physical to use, a strange kind of challenge.

"[3] Unlike Neon Indian's debut studio album Psychic Chasms (2009), which involved creating "microloops" via building up one-bar samples into multiple bars that would make up a full song, Palomo said that in composing Era Extraña, he recorded a riff from a sound he made and tried to "keep that momentum up".

[3] He said that "the more tedious aspects of production do have the capacity to take the wind out of your sails, so you always have to navigate through that as quickly as you can before you start feeling burnt on the song, before you forget that initial spark that made you even want to write it in the first place".

[11] In a PopMatters review, Nathan Wisnicki said that Palomo's introversion is "certainly apparent", citing that even the album's most joyful melodies are "rigidly grafted to both rhythmic thrust and hooks more anxious than comfortable".

[11] "Decay" starts the "it-has-to-get-worse-before-it-gets-better" phase of the post-breakup period that is explored on Era Extraña, while "Release" ends the album with relief, yet also a fearful first step forward from a breakup.

[16] Cooke noted the "dazzling syncopated pulse" to be similar to the coin sound effect in games from the Mario series, while observing melodies that "splash and slide around sickly-sweet flurries of arpeggios and a family-friendly feel-good beat".

[9] Parry Ernsberger of Blurt said that the song includes what sounds like samples from the game Super Mario World (1991), and has the "euphoric energy" of Cut Copy's album Zonoscope (2011).

[15] Palomo sounds unreachable on this song, like "a lonely planet boy sending out distress signals from the saddest corner of the solar system", said Rolling Stone critic Jon Dolan.

[12] DIY's Dani Beck and Derek Robertson said that the track sounds like music for the opening credits of a late-night Arnold Schwarzenegger B-movie,[21] while Phares stated it could have been recorded by Love and Rockets or Billy Idol back in the 1980s.

[15] Fitzmaurice described "Halogen (I Could Be a Shadow)" as the "near-double" of "Kim and Jessie" by M83,[8] whereas Aizlewood compared the song to the works of the Thompson Twins,[14] while Phares said it sounds like music that would "play over the credits of a sci-fi teen sex comedy".

[8] It depicts Palomo lamenting "mid-volume under his own creation's drunken abstraction" about wanting to go back into the past, because thinking of the future is making him ill.[8][15] At this point, according to The Observer's Killian Fox, some of the wooziness that Era Extraña takes from Psychic Chasms "veers into nausea".

[18] Aizlewood found Era Extraña to be an intriguing yet unusual record, but disliked the lack of "obvious emotion", calling the album overall "easy to admire but hard to love".

[14] Tiny Mix Tapes's Guy Frowny called it "an agreeable listening experience with moments of catchiness and beauty throughout, and hints of an evolutionary path that leave future expectations open-ended".

[39] Dolan saw the album as an improvement on Psychic Chasms and said it dunks "dreamy early-MTV haircutband balladry in layers of psychedelic schmutz, almost hiding excellent songs in the murk".

[20] Olly Parker, a reviewer for Loud and Quiet, also noted an improvement and praised the album's songcraft and interesting sound, but said it fell in the "meh" category and "can't get below the surface".

Club critic Steven Hyden wrote that while Era Extraña sounds "fuller" than Psychic Chasms and "still has plenty of hooks to offer", Palomo "has to take both feet out of the bedroom to move his music forward".

He also compared it to another chillwave album that was released a few months before, Washed Out's Within and Without, saying, "Where Within is an immaculately conceived graduation from [Ernest] Greene's early lo-fi work, Extraña is a minor refinement that still feels chintzy in places.

"[23] Beck and Robertson also discussed Washed Out, as well as Toro y Moi, dubbing the album an unfunny parody of chillwave and also criticizing it as "such a strong homage to everything that's cool about retro-chic that you can't help but smell a rat".