With its catchy melodies, a winsome if vulnerable voice, and a breezy summer mood, each of the 14 songs on New York-based singer-songwriter Jesse Harris’s new album, “Feel” (Velour) instantly sound familiar and ephemeral. Mr. Harris — best known for his Grammy Award-winning songwriting work for Norah Jones and, more recently, for collaborations with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and with Ethan Hawke’s for his film adaptation of his own novel, “The Hottest State” — is a limber, witty songwriter and an even more confident singer. Those who know him only for the songs performed by other artists may be surprised to learn that these are traits he has showcased on his six previous albums going back to 1999.

Mr. Harris’s success with writing for others is not for a lack of distinctive talent. His voice is as unique as a snowflake, and almost as fragile. He can bray a country twang and ease into reassuring intimacy in the same verse, as he does on the galloping honky-tonk “You and Me”: “I won’t tell anybody/ I swear to keep it a secret,” he bursts with a nasal burr before calming into “You and me / we can be alone/ walking through a world of our own.” Sometimes Mr. Harris pulls off such vocal gymnastics in the same breath, as on “The Wind,” where the every line emerges like a firecracker and ends with a sigh.

Mr. Harris favors such juxtapositions, letting his inflection set a mood as much as his melody. “Too late to be sorry, too late to try again,” he offers gently in the jaunty “Walk On.” An arpeggio guitar line and snappy percussions sculpt the peppy melodic spine, but Mr. Harris plays off the giddy tune with a resigned “No way to deny it / Why not take it on the chin and walk on?” It’s a wry combination — convivial musical paired with reconciled lyrics delivered with a blithe grin — that Mr. Harris amplifies on the bridge, where he soberly sings, “Don’t be so sad and grave/ I know you’re bold and so brave,” over a downright ebullient cascade of vibes — an instrument whose very timbre generates smiles.

Like his best songs, “Walk On” is a curveball, leaving the listener uncertain about its subject and mood until it finally crosses the plate. It’s a songwriting gambit that finds its greatest pitch in the standout track “Shadow.” Looping rhythms, a witty guitar chug, wily organ flourishes, and an easygoing drum pulse provide the rosy melody. And Mr. Harris sings his first lines like a country singer leaning into his road song, more concerned with the journey than where he’s going or where he’s been: “Gone this far / its’ too late to run back / And the sky has turned from blue to black.”

Though the charming music never deviates from its sunny disposition, the story told in the lyrics grows ever more foreboding — “Turned it on but you can’t turn it off / And it grips you like a fatal cough” — until Mr. Harris arrives at this simple song’s final lines, which recast everything heard before them: “Won’t you tell me what you’re gonna do / When your shadow catches up with you?” “Shadow” isn’t an elated ode to travel, but an anxious tale of flight.

The song would land with even greater force if the 37-year-old songwriter weren’t such a giving musician. Unlike so many pop writers-performers, Mr. Harris doesn’t craft songs whose meaning can be gleaned by reading the title, nor does he orchestrate songs that build to crescendos and permit listeners to follow, lemming-like, to the catchy chorus. He favors subtlety over panache, the artful sigh over the dramatic belt, and while his approach wryly compliments his sagacious songs, it makes for music more intellectually pleasing than viscerally thrilling.

That’s why when performers who are more sympathetic to pop’s operatic melodrama — like Norah Jones or Conor Oberst, or any number of a growing list of artists —perform his material, it feels like a revelation. “Feel” isn’t going to catapult Mr. Harris into the same sort of limelight as the artists who cover his songs; but, much to his credit, its carefree beauty makes one suspect he’s okay with that.