FWIW, if you’re okay with Mellencamp now singing like a Midwest version of Tom Waits (I 100% am), then his 2024 album Orpheus Descending is a rare and wonderful piece.
For me? It is the single best album of his career. It’s too musically catchy to be morose, the lyrics are too nasty and cutting to be pop music, he’s back to his Big Daddy era Appalachia-meets-Indiana arrangements, and the whole thing just works.