Moon Pix is the fourth studio album by Cat Power, the stage name and eponymous band of American singer-songwriter, Chan Marshall.

Much of the album was written in a single night, following a hallucinatory nightmare Marshall experienced while staying at a farmhouse in South Carolina.

The album was recorded in Melbourne, Australia with Mick Turner and Jim White, of the Australian instrumental band Dirty Three, on guitar and drums, respectively.

[4] Several songs on Moon Pix— "No Sense," "Say," "Metal Heart," "You May Know Him" and "Cross Bones Style"— were written "in one deranged night," following a hallucinatory nightmare Marshall had in the fall of 1997, while alone in the South Carolina farmhouse she shared with her then-boyfriend, Bill Callahan.

"[5] In a 2013 interview with Rob Hughes of The Daily Telegraph, Marshall again recounted the experience: "I was by myself for three months in the country, surrounded by fields.

"[8] According to Marshall, some of Moon Pix was also inspired by two months she spent alone in South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania, an experience that she said "dented" her.

"Cross Bones Style" was written about two children she met in Africa who slept in trees at night after their parents were killed.

The album's opener, "American Flag," features a slowed-down reversed drum sample from the 1986 Beastie Boys song, "Paul Revere."

[2] In a 1998 interview with Marcus Maida for Hotel Discipline, Marshall recalled that Turner was late to the studio, which led to "American Flag" being worked on for an estimated five hours, becoming by default the album's most "produced" song.

Marshall recalled encouraging Woods, who had never heard her music, to stop "holding back" after hearing her initial attempts, after which she delivered the master performance in a single take.

The album cover of Moon Pix was taken by American photographer Roe Ethridge at his apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

According to the 33 1/3 entry on Moon Pix by Donna Kozloskie, Marshall called Ethridge, who had been a friend of hers when they both lived in Atlanta, in September or October 1998 and suggested they "take a picture," potentially for the album cover.

[12] Reviewing the album for NME, Stuart Bailey wrote that "Cat Power... walks a dazzling line between Sonic Youth and Hank Williams, and that on Moon Pix, "she sounds like the oldest person alive; copping lines from the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ on the ferocious ‘Metal Heart’ or getting in character for ‘Moonshiner’, a tune that she learnt off a Dylan bootleg and that's imbued with the lonesome spirit of Will Oldham.

[22] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave it a rating of "C+," calling Marshall "an honest heroine of the new indie staple" which was based on "slow sadness about one's inability to relate.

"[23] Also writing for The Village Voice, Jane Dark wrote that Moon Pix was "supposed to mesmerize and haunt.

"[24] Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber gave the album a rating of 7.4, and wrote that it "spins through 11 tracks of soft strumming and brittle vocals, all while you rest your head on your pillow, watching a muted black-and-white television, and drifting in and out of consciousness.

"[10] Jonathan Trew of The List wrote that "Marshall's voice seems to come from some other dimension, it hangs and it haunts, inhabiting an oft sparse terrain of faintly country-ish hue," and declared that the album was "odd but well worth investigating.

"[26] Moon Pix has retrospectively been praised as a key album of 1990s indie rock, and cited as evidence of Marshall's maturation as a songwriter.

In a four-and-a-half star review, Heather Phares of AllMusic wrote that it "continues Chan Marshall's transformation from an indie rock Cassandra into a reflective, accomplished singer/songwriter.

[3] Lisa Lagace of NPR called Moon Pix "a note-perfect album that turns inward, filled with songs that express what it means to be deeply, inexplicably melancholy," and wrote that "it will continue to work its magic, healing metal hearts, for generations to come.

"[27] In 2018, Pitchfork ranked Moon Pix at number six on its list of "The 50 Best Albums of 1998," with Matthew Schnipper calling it "as powerful as indie gets, bar none.

"[8] In 2019, Pitchfork updated the album's score to 9.5 with a new review by Jayson Greene, who wrote that "sometimes an artist makes something dangerously potent, a piece of work with a mood so thick that it demands an explanation.

"[30] In 2022, the website ranked Moon Pix at number 66 in their list of "The 150 Best Albums of the 1990s", comparing its sound to "a summer thunderstorm in the middle of nowhere".