It features multiple guest collaborators providing vocals and live instrumentation across its twenty-one tracks, including Danny Brown, MF DOOM, David Berman, Toro y Moi, Warren Ellis, Jonathan Donahue, Kevin Parker, Biz Markie, and Father John Misty, amongst others.

Much like its predecessor, the album features extensive sampling, especially from 1960s psychedelic music, and relates to the era through themes of counterculture and anti-establishment.

Member Robbie Chater described the album's structure as a road trip from a hyperrealistic urban environment to somewhere remote and far away while on LSD.

Production was restarted in 2011, led by Robbie Chater with assistance from Tony Di Blasi, but soon stalled due to the former being ill for three years.

Some of their most time-consuming work included the score to King Kong, and an animated musical film described as a "hip hop version of Yellow Submarine" which lost funding and was never completed.

Teasing of the album began in April 2016, and it was formally announced in June alongside the release of its first single, an extended mix of "Frankie Sinatra" (2016).

The album was a commercial success, reaching number one in the band's native Australia and the top ten in the United Kingdom.

[14] In January 2007, the band stated via its website that roughly 40 tracks were being considered for the record, but no estimated arrival date could be provided.

[16] It's so fuckin' party you will die, much more hip hop than you might expect...ended up sounding like the next logical step to [Since I Left You], we just had to go around in a big circle to get back to where we belong.

Between 2010 and 2012, Ariel Pink, Jennifer Herrema and Danny Brown revealed that they had worked with the Avalanches on new music, the latter mentioning a track named "Frank Sinatra".

[21] During this era, they also devoted a large amount of time working on the score to King Kong, a 2013 theater production which took two years to produce.

Through the projects and collaborations over the years, the group had collected enough music which could be combined into a new album, marking a similar process to how Since I Left You was built.

"[27] The group had been clearing samples starting in 2011–12, but would occasionally need to re-negotiate when owners of the source material discovered who the Avalanches were and would request more money.

[31] The most difficult sample to clear was of a choir from Kew High School in Melbourne singing "Come Together" by The Beatles on the track "The Noisy Eater".

The record is supposed to "capture that feeling of growing up...jumping in the car and hitting the road with a six-pack and heading out to the bush.

"[8] The album attempts to capture the "halfway between happy and sad" feeling similar to old Beach Boys records which are a constant inspiration for the group.

"It starts off appearing like it's a very happy, joyous song," says Chater, "but there's a twist in the tale when the sample reveals that it's actually about someone having their sunshine taken away – the blue skies turn grey.

The cover art is a direct reference to Sly and the Family Stone's There's a Riot Goin' On (1971) in order to draw from the record's rebellious counter-culture nature, though approaching a more psychedelic style.

[8] On 12 April 2016, the Avalanches added new images of a gold butterfly on black cloth to their social media accounts and official website.

[34] On 24 May, the band posted a video poking fun at their long hiatus since their last album and the continuous speculation of a follow-up release.

[43] Prior to the album's release, radio disc jockey Zane Lowe called Wildflower a "triumph" with "incredible, tasteful collaborations.

"[8] In a rave review, Andy Gill of The Independent hailed the album as "a cause for celebration, its Zappa/Beasties-style collage of voices, samples, beats, sounds, and especially laughter offering a joyous affirmation of life.

[53] Brad Shoup of Spin noted that while "the terrain is familiar, the subjects have changed," and the album as a whole "feels as though it was made for the Avalanches rather than a patient public.

"[52] Pitchfork critic Mark Richardson remarked that the group's work "continues to mine a deceptively narrow emotional world—new love, childhood playfulness, wistful sadness, happy feelings of connection—but renders it better than just about any music ever made.

"[28] The Guardian's Tim Jonze called Wildflower "a joyous journey" and concluded, "It's testament to the power of their original vision that it all still sounds so fresh.

"[46] Rolling Stone's Will Hermes called Wildflower "a welcome return" and wrote that "what still sets the Avalanches apart, besides their careful groove pacing, attention to detail, and uncanny ability to move you from inside a track to outside looking in, is their sweet sense of nostalgia.

"[44] Emily MacKay of NME was less favourable, asking how "something that took so long [could] sound so, well, meh," and ultimately called the album "a faded snapshot of a cosier, very distant-seeming past.