Unafraid to show vulnerability, Niko Walters maintains a pining, confiding presence across his second album. “I had to tell my story my way,” the New Zealand singer-songwriter recounts on “Your Way,” an intimate ballad about the hurt arising from a partner’s refusal to listen to other perspectives. He name-checks D’Angelo’s 2000 classic, Voodoo, as a source of comfort during the song, and it’s easy to hear the influence of that touchstone LP on Walters’ ruminative, stripped-back take on R&B. The younger brother of SIX60 singer Matiu Walters, he also found considerable grounding in writing by the sea, employing that setting as a metaphor for the world outside someone’s self-involvement on “Drop in the Ocean.” Whether singing against a finely tuned live band or sparser backdrops, Walters invites us directly into a bold series of emotional reveals. As he pleads on the deeply felt “Circus,” “Our minds are a circus/Pull back the curtains.”