The single's release was set for January 28, 1966 which would have predated both The Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and The Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things" which, coincidentally, also began work the same week as "Sunshine Superman".

[8] Solo acoustic versions of these songs, along with "Hampstead Incident" and "House of Jansch" which would appear on the following Mellow Yellow, were performed as early as an October 1965 concert at Westfield High School, New Jersey.

[12] The second phase of the album's recording took place in Los Angeles during the first week of April 1966, where Donovan played a ten day residency at The Trip, a hip Sunset Strip nightclub.

Time was booked at CBS Studios where Donovan recorded "Season of the Witch", "The Trip" and the outtake "Superlungs" with a West Coast rock combo that included Bobby Ray on bass, Lenny Maitlin on Hammond organ and "Fast" Eddie Hoh on drums.

Trouble arose during the recording of "Season of the Witch" when the engineers refused to turn the bass levels up, afraid of moving the needle into the red, before eventually being persuaded after a long conference with Most.

[9] Besides "Superlungs", other outtakes from the sessions included "Epistle to Dippy" (a January 1967 US single), "Young Girl Blues" (to be included on Mellow Yellow), "Museum" (re-recorded for Mellow Yellow) and "The Land of Doesn't Have to Be", all from the album's January-February sessions in London, along with "Breezes of Patchulie" (originally called "Darkness of My Night" and released on Donovan's 1964 demo collection Sixty Four), given a full band arrangement that April in Los Angeles.

The Sunshine Superman recordings of "Superlungs", "Museum" and "Patchulie" were all included on Troubadour The Definitive Collection 1964–1976, while "The Land of Doesn't Have to Be" was a bonus track on the 2005 rerelease of the album.

[16] The album's lyrical content encompasses Donovan's increasing ability to portray Swinging London and give listeners an insider's look into the mid-sixties pop scene.

Contrasting this modern bent was Donovan's fascination with medieval themes in songs such as "Legend of a Girl Child Linda" and "Guinevere", which would greatly influence the coming hippie and flower-power movements.

[9] Epic Records, however, chose a different sleeve featuring a face picture of the artist in a paisley shirt taken by Barry Feinstein, surrounded by art noveau lettering of the album title created by Dick Smith.

Upon release, Sunshine Superman received positive reviews in Billboard and Cashbox, with the former calling the material "new and intriguing", singling out "Celeste" as "exceptionally performed" while the latter picked "Season of the Witch", "The Fat Angel" and "Legend of a Girl Child Linda" as "blue ribbon tracks".

"[27] Allen Evens of New Musical Express observed "Donovan pours his sincere vocal mood-making into every track, from the wistfulness of "Season of the Witch" to the bluesiness of "Hampstead Incident" to the fast-paced beatiness of "Sunshine Superman", pointing out John Cameron's attractive arrangements.

[28] Retrospectively, John Bush at AllMusic states "producer Mickie Most fashioned a new sound for the Scottish folksinger, a sparse, swinging, bass-heavy style perfectly complementing Donovan's enigmatic lyrics and delightfully skewed, beatnik delivery" although he notes that "Legend of a Girl Child Linda" "plods on for nearly seven minutes".

[29] Reviewing the 2011 stereo special edition, Andy Gill of The Independent called it "powerfully evocative of its era...with psych-rockers such as the title-track balanced by mythic poesie like "Guinevere" and sitar-laced hippie whimsy like "The Fat Angel".

[30] Sunshine Superman is often singled out as pioneering due its combination of classical, jazz, Celtic folk, acid rock and raga-rock influences, as well as its lyrical preoccupation with Eastern, medieval and nature themes which would come to define the flower-power movement.

He was accompanied by the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by John Cameron, which also featured many of the musicians who played on the album including Jimmy Page, Shawn Phillips, and Danny Thompson along with his children Astrella Celeste and Donovan Jr. on backing vocals.