Green (in the wedding dress)of Gnarls Barkley, who have a new album out, ‘‘The Odd Couple.’’

By JEFF CHANG

LOS ANGELES - On a late February afternoon Gnarls Barkley, the duo known for its funny costumes and psychedelic post-hip-hop sound, was unmasked and at rest at a quiet hotel in Beverly Hills. Cee- Lo Green, the short, heavily tattooed singing and lyric-writing half, had just finished a snack of sushi. Danger Mouse, the tall, scruffy producing half, was wiping sleep from his eyes after a nap .
They were pondering how their second album, “The Odd Couple,” then unreleased, might be received, given the buzz that it was a good deal weirder and darker than their million-selling debut, “St.
Elsewhere” from 2006.
“It’s going to be a surprise for me,” said Danger Mouse, 30, whose real name is Brian Burton . “It may be really big or really modest, I don’t know.”
Clues came much more quickly than the two probably expected. In early March the album leaked onto the Internet. On March 18 the band’s label, Atlantic Records, rushed it to stores, weeks ahead of its planned April 8 release.
The day after its release “The Odd Couple” was atop the iTunes albums chart. But its first-week sales were only 31,000 copies, landing it at No. 18 on the Billboard chart. Jeff Antebi, the band’s manager, said many brick-and-mortar stores did not get shipments until the end of the week.
“No one was looking at extraordinary Week 1 numbers,” he said. Given that the first single, “Run,” received a lukewarm response from radio and that most early reviews bemoaned the lack of a song as infectious as “Crazy,” the band’s smash single from 2006, it appeared the album was not on track to match the success of “St. Elsewhere.” “Crazy” was a blogosphere favorite and a sensation in Britain. It lingered around the top of the charts in 15 countries for much of 2006 and won a Grammy Award, leaving even its creators a bit thunderstruck.
Craig Kallman, the chairman and chief executive of Atlantic, remains optimistic. “It’s a fantastic album, and it’s one that’s going to continue to get discovered,” he said.
Mr. Burton said he wanted to create a more cohesive set of moods with the album’s songs. “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul-” implies the blues through hushed textures and subtle rhythmic disjunctures. In “Open Book” the beat skitters like arrhythmia as Cee-Lo does some not-so-soothing Lennon-inspired wailing reminiscent of “Mother.”
Cee-Lo, 32, whose real name is Thomas Callaway, often flips familiar rap themes like jealousy and rage into close studies of loneliness and connection, darkness and sunshine. “Hurt people hurt people,” he sings on “Would Be Killer.” The album’s pivotal moment may be the slightly ominous ditty “Surprise,” which evokes the duo stumbling down Sunset Boulevard arm-in-arm with Arthur Lee, the leader of the ‘60s rock band Love, who died in 2006. In it Cee-Lo sings, or perhaps warns, “If that big old smile ends up being just a disguise, don’t be surprised!”
Cee-Lo said that Gnarls Barkley “has been my safe haven and my sanctuary to expose or share and bring closure to my own issues.”
He was referring to the deaths of his parents, both ordained ministers. His father died when he was 2. When he was 18, his mother died, two years after she was paralyzed in a car crash. Cee-Lo addresses their passings on “She Knows” and “A Little Better,” from the new album, and speaks of his mother’s presence as that of a lingering friendly ghost.
The duo began work on “The Odd Couple” while on tour for “St. Elsewhere.” Cee-Lo said they didn’t try to write another “Crazy.” “If there was a formula to it, I would cut this interview short and go to the studio,” he said.