In May 2013, the band released Modern Vampires of the City to critical and commercial success, winning the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

[12] The pop[13][14][15] and indie rock[16][17] album is heavily referential both lyrically and musically, channeling a springtime mood despite its "encyclopedic" density.

[14] The album's lyrical style is more direct and straightforward than Koenig's previous writing, inspired by American country singer Kacey Musgraves.

[19] Themes explored on the album include lost youth, romantic downfall, political strife, uncertainty, doom, complacency, environmentalism, and existentialism, with an eventual arc towards redemption and rebirth.

Influences from rave, baggy and Madchester music from 1990s England, such as "Unbelievable" by EMF, are also evident in its piano and beat, with Baroque elements in its bridge.

[18][38] "Big Blue" ambiguously explores religious and cosmic uncertainty, with the concise track including ambient arpeggios, sporadic drum samples, "flowery" harmonies, a choir and detuned guitar riffs as it builds dynamically.

contrasts jovial and funky keyboards, sound effects, harmonies and guitars against dark and bitter lyrics about the potential demise of Los Angeles.

[8] "Unbearably White" is a "colorful" art pop song, which develops to incorporate isolated vocals, handbells, jazz fusion-inspired bass guitar, and orchestral surges, and lyrically discusses a failing relationship.

[18][41] The cryptic "Rich Man" samples palm-wine guitarist S. E. Rogie,[27] and features lush strings, with Koenig "crooning" about romance, wealth and ratios.

[43] Koenig began writing the song at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards where the group won Best Alternative Music Album for Modern Vampires of the City.

[15][21][24] The freak folk[44] and flamenco song "Sympathy" contains influences from Schaffel techno,[25] rave,[37] and English rock band New Order.

[8] The unorthodox and psychedelic "Sunflower" opens with guitar, bass and scatted vocal runs in unison, reminiscent of prog, with its chorus shifting to warm soul-pop.

[13] "2021" is a minimal and romantic ballad,[49] built around a sample of ambient track "Talking",[1] composed in the 1980s by Haruomi Hosono for Japanese retail company Muji.

It features a soft pulsing synthesizer and fingerpicked guitars, along with a distorted vocal sample of the word "boy" sung by Jenny Lewis.

[50][49][51] The anthemic and extravagant "We Belong Together" is the third and final duet with Haim,[29] and has been compared to "Mull of Kintyre" (1977) by Wings and the production work of Kanye West.

[55][56][57] The "sad" album closer "Jerusalem, New York, Berlin" references the Balfour Declaration,[29] and has musically been compared to the works of Scottish electronic musician Sophie.

[58] The album's Japanese bonus tracks include "Houston Dubai", a cover of Mickey Newbury's "I Don't Think Much About Her No More" (1969) and "Lord Ullin's Daughter".

The latter song features English actor Jude Law reciting Scottish poet Thomas Campbell's poem of the same name over a stripped back rendition of "Big Blue".

The album's simple cover artwork depicts a globe in a cartoon style that has been compared to the aesthetics of 1960s grass-roots group Another Mother for Peace, 1990s environmentalism and the early internet.

[74] The band incorporated an expanded touring line-up to promote the album, with Brian Robert Jones, Greta Morgan, Garrett Ray and Will Canzoneri joining the group.

[82] On March 21, the group appeared on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge, performing "Harmony Hall" and a cover of "Sunflower" by Post Malone and Swae Lee, in reference to the album's track of the same name.

[85] On June 26, the band performed a piano-driven version of "This Life" and a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down" (1985) at New York's Electric Lady Studios for the Spotify Singles series.

[14] Kitty Empire of sister publication The Observer praised the album's breadth and maturity, writing that it "exudes warmth and no little sonic familiarity, while reflecting what is a radically altered set-up".

[15] Chris DeVille of Stereogum wrote that the album could potentially be the group's magnum opus and that it "manages to be both a casual joyride and a multi-layered dissertation on the world’s ills".

[16] For The Independent, Jazz Monroe commended Koenig for maturing without becoming self-serious, writing that the album's low stakes and "unfashionable" nature were its strongest features.

[26] In her review for AllMusic, Heather Phares wrote that the album "finds Vampire Weekend embracing change and delivering some of their most mature and satisfying music in the process".

[89] Thomas Smith of NME praised the album's fun nature, writing that it "sounds like the work of some pals noodling away in the studio and shooting the shit" and "more often than not it’s a hit, not a miss".

[37] In Robert Christgau's Expert Witness column for Vice, he applauded Koenig's complex exploration of class, describing it as a "sprightly, allusive, elusive, technically accomplished collection" that generally "bespeak[s] some fraught combination of lost youth, career anxiety, and, way down deep, political dismay."

[28] In a more critical review, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune described the album as "mild", noting that Koenig's lyrical expressions of discomfort were not conveyed through the pleasant music.

[124] The album also reached number two in the UK[125] and Scotland,[126] and the top ten in Portugal,[127] Ireland,[128] Canada,[129] Australia[130] and the Flemish Region of Belgium.