After touring 2011’s Circuital (2011), for two years the band took a break before regrouping in late 2013 to begin work on The Waterfall, a process which took eighteen months.

My Morning Jacket supported the record with a large summer tour, spanning five months and featuring appearances at theaters and festivals.

My Morning Jacket—consisting of singer-songwriter Jim James, guitarist Carl Broemel, bassist Tom Blankenship, drummer Patrick Hallahan, and keyboardist Bo Koster—formed in 1997 and rose to fame in the mid-2000s with their fourth album Z, which represented a critical and commercial breakthrough for the band.

[3] While the band took a break, James stayed busy, touring behind his solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God, and collaborating with Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford for the New Basement Tapes project.

"[8] Their time there left them with a strong affinity for the area, and it profoundly impacted the album's tone; Blankenship remarked, "When I listen to the record it [...] sounds like a sunset out there.

The Waterfall "exploring love, loss, philosophical statements, and naturalistic imagery,"[6] while its musical contents are diverse, consisting of "existentialist R&B, nature-boy folk, wigged-out psychedelia, and jam-friendly arena rock.

He partnered with Neil Krug, who also directed artwork for his solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God, to color the image.

[7] To promote the album, the band enlisted artists to paint murals of a waterfall on the side of buildings in five U.S. cities: Venice, Chicago, Williamsburg, Nashville, and Portland, Louisville.

[14] The group partnered with Portland Investment Initiative and Beautify Earth for the stunt, as a part of their own environmental campaign, The Waterfall Project.

[20] Will Hermes of Rolling Stone imagined it "the band's sunniest, and trippiest, album," giving acclaim to their ability to "tap the past without sounding like throwbacks.

"[28] The Guardian's Jon Dennis deemed it "big-canvas country-rock with spellbinding moments" with a "warm glow" missing from previous albums by the group.

[27] Nate Chinen of The New York Times called it a "consolidation of [the band's] strengths," opining that a "hum of an everyday mysticism [...] resonates louder than usual" on The Waterfall.

Club's Lior Phillips claimed that the album "might not be a classic, but it still suggests that after nearly two decades fans don’t know every side of My Morning Jacket.

"[30] Hal Horowitz of American Songwriter felt it "one of the band’s finest and most alluring offerings to date," noting the album's tranquil but passionate atmosphere.

[22] NPR's Meredith Ochs wrote that "in a gentler sense, the music itself is kind of like a waterfall—cascading notes, opaque layers of sound, and rippling arrangements that can bend or break the verse-chorus structure of traditional rock songs.

"[31] The Boston Globe's Steve Morse called it the group's "most serious, progressive LP," praising its "musical brilliance" while deeming James' lyricism "odd.

"[32] Sheldon Pearce of Consequence of Sound gave the record a B, commenting, "My Morning Jacket harken back to their alt country roots on The Waterfall and create a remarkable vision of the American countryside in the process, one as filled with solitude as it is with wonder.

"[24] "Always prey to their psychedelic tendencies, here MMJ swallow the full tab and dive headfirst into a whirlpool of supposition, analogy and swirling guitar," wrote Andy Gill of The Independent.

[26] Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote that the album "quickly loses focus and runs short of energy, the latter being this set's crippling flaw.

"[21] Jeremy Winograd of Slant Magazine felt the band's style diversions "alternately inventive and bafflingly blockheaded," concluding that the group may be "at their best when operating safely within less experimental paradigms.

The tour spans much of the summer and early fall 2015, and includes appearances at large festivals (Governors Ball and Bonnaroo) as well as headlining shows.