The Best Indian Indie EPs of the 2020s

The EP has become the main format of Indian independent music in the 2020s. Studio time is expensive, streaming rewards regular releases, and a four- or five-song record lets an artist show range without the cost and risk of a full album. Many of the decade's best Indian indie records are EPs, and they rarely get the attention albums do. This guide lists fourteen of them, all released between 2020 and 2026 (plus one earlier reference point) and all available on Apple Music in India at the time of writing, with what each one does and where to go next.

We count an EP as a release of roughly three to seven tracks that the artist or distributor files as an EP. Album guides are elsewhere: see the best Indian indie albums of 2025, 2026 so far and the 2010s.

Singer-songwriter EPs

1. Prateek Kuhad – Shehron Ke Raaz (2021). Four Hindi songs, including an acoustic reworking of his 2020 single "Kasoor". It works as a short companion to his albums: the same close-miked voice, with even less in the way. Prateek Kuhad; Prateek Kuhad songs.

2. Vaibhav Malhotra – Afsana (2020). Five tracks of warm, Urdu-leaning Hindi pop. A modest record that shows why his later singles found an audience. Vaibhav Malhotra; our Afreen review.

3. Osho Jain – Wahaan (2020). Five songs built around his baritone, which is unusual in a scene full of tenors. Follow it with Uff (2024), another five-track EP. Osho Jain; profile.

4. Divyam Sodhi & Khwaab – Ehsaas (2025). A four-track EP from a songwriter whose catalogue only begins in 2025, which makes this a good example of how quickly the EP format lets new artists establish themselves. Divyam Sodhi; Khwaab.

5. Garvit–Priyansh – Lafz (2024). Four tracks from the singer-composer duo of Garvit Soni and Priyansh Srivastava, blending Hindustani classical phrasing with contemporary pop. Garvit–Priyansh; profile.

6. Vardaan Malhotra – Putla (2024). Four tracks, and one of the less obvious entries here. Worth hearing for anyone tired of the same bedroom-pop sound. Vardaan Malhotra.

Band EPs

7. Easy Wanderlings – Caught in a Parade (2022). Five songs from the eight-piece band, five years after their crowdfunded debut album. Folk, soul and pop in neat arrangements that leave room for every member. Easy Wanderlings; Easy Wanderlings songs.

8. When Chai Met Toast – Nature Tapes, Vol. 1 (2024). Five tracks from the Kochi band best known for singalong festival sets. It is quieter and more textured than their earlier records, and it comes after their 2021 album When We Feel Young. When Chai Met Toast.

9. Fallen Letters – Forlorn Pages (2024). Six tracks from a Bengaluru heavy band formed in 2023 by Vishal Naidu and Aditya Ramesh. Released in May 2024, it was followed by the album Mindfractures in 2025. Fallen Letters. More heavy music: Indian metal bands.

10. Godless – Genesis of Decay (2025). Five tracks of precise death metal from a band whose full-length States of Chaos came out in 2021. A good short entry point to one of India's most technical metal acts. Godless.

Regional and crossover EPs

11. Dabzee & Rishi Roy – Delkochi (2025). Six tracks from the Malayalam rapper-singer, whose melodic, half-sung delivery draws on Mappila song. One of the most distinctive regional records of the decade. Dabzee.

12. Ali Saffudin – Irtiqa (2026). Four Kashmiri-language songs. Ali Saffudin's earlier Home Recordings (Vol. 1) (2020) is the place to go after this. Ali Saffudin.

13. Kavita Seth & Kanishk Seth – Dil Safar (2026). Four tracks released in February 2026, pairing Kavita Seth's deep, Sufi-trained voice with her son Kanishk's production. Proof that the EP is not only a young artist's format. Kavita Seth.

14. Shriya Rao – In a Box (2025). Four songs, intimate and spare. A short record that rewards a careful listen. Shriya Rao.

15. When Chai Met Toast – Believe (2018) — a pre-decade reference. Not a 2020s release, so it sits outside the count, but it is the EP that most clearly shows where the band's later work came from.

Why EPs dominate the decade

Three things pushed Indian independent artists toward the EP in the 2020s. First, the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 shut down live music and with it the income that paid for album sessions; short records recorded at home or in a few studio days became the norm. Second, streaming services surface new releases on a rolling basis, so a regular release schedule matters more than one big album every few years. Third, independent distribution made it easy for any artist to put out a short record without a label.

The result is a decade in which many artists' best work is on EPs. That is why a list of the decade's essential records that only includes albums would miss a lot of the music.

How to listen

Play an EP in order, start to finish; most are sequenced to be heard in under twenty-five minutes. If one catches you, go to the artist page and listen back through the singles that came before it. For more of the singer-songwriters on this list, see Indian singer-songwriters; for the bands, Indian indie bands.

How we chose

Every record here is released; we did not include anything announced but not yet out. Track counts and years come from Apple Music's India catalogue. We aimed for range across languages, genres and cities rather than ranking by streams.

Common questions

What is an EP? An extended play: longer than a single, shorter than an album, usually three to seven tracks.

Why do Indian indie artists release so many EPs? They cost less to make, suit streaming release schedules, and let new artists build a catalogue fast.

What is a good first Indian indie EP to try? Prateek Kuhad's Shehron Ke Raaz for Hindi songwriting, Easy Wanderlings' Caught in a Parade for a band, and Dabzee's Delkochi for something regional.