From brass band music to instrumental rock, hip-hop to zydeco, trad jazz to Indian funk, Bayou Boogaloo 2015 featured such a diverse range of great local acts that it would be impossible to do everyone justice.

Here’s just a smattering of what the waterfront festival had to offer this year.

Bilingual Cajun-fusion rock outfit Soul Creole, a young five-piece group out of Lafayette, at first glance sounded merely good.

Their French numbers were solidly impressive, ranging from edgy/hard-driving bluesy, to rollicking à la Beau Jocque, to that special brand of pining Cajun melancholy. (Their English numbers, which took on a country-pop-radio feel complete with corny, quotidian lyrics, tended to be less listenable, although that could be a matter of personal preference.)

However, the multi-talented rockers really showed their stripes on the last number.

Called “Welcome to Our World,” it was a danceable, hip-hop infused melange driven by tense energy, doused in hard rock intensity, and played on characteristically-Cajun instruments (accordion, fiddle, guitar, drums, triangle, and multi-lingual vocals.)

The band members clearly had fun with it too, dancing up on each other and facing off with their instruments. It would be great to see a whole album or set in this vein.

Taking the Orleans stage next were the Wild Magnolias, the famed Mardi Gras Indian band who were of particular interest this year in the wake of Big Chief Bo Dollis, Sr.’s recent death.

Before the Indians took to the stage, their all-star backing band played “Tipitina,” in honor of another, more recently deceased New Orleans musician, Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill. (Hill’s funeral arrangements have just been announced for the coming weekend.)

In any situation, you’d be hard-pressed to find a New Orleanian who doesn’t hear the opening notes of “Tipitina” and feel a tug on the heartstrings, but this group really nailed it.

One of the best songs of the festival, it was a perfect balance of poignancy and hard-driving power.

Then the Indians: Spy Boy, Wild Man, Second Chief, current Big Chief Bo Dollis, Jr., and his mother Big Queen Lorita, dressed resplendently in gold–burst onstage in an explosion of funk and color and launched into a danceable, party set made up of classic Mardi Gras Indian tunes mixed with old-school soul/funk favorites.

At the perfect quiet, still moment, a gust of wind came out of nowhere, coalescing with a crescendo in the music.

Big Chief Bo Dollis, Jr. pointed at the sky and smiled to himself, reminding anyone who heard his speech at the Jazz Fest 2015 cube release this year of his conviction that his father was still among the family at Wild Magnolia performances and making his presence known.

For someone who had never heard them (or heard of them) before, Yojimbo was the biggest surprise and totally stole the festival.

The young trio is hard to peg genre-wise, but “punkish alt-rock” probably wouldn’t be too far off. You might describe them as being like a young, hip, weird, high-energy New York band, with drums and keys/key bass, but a trombone instead of a guitar.

Vocalist/trombonist Carly Meyers was a compellingly wacky performer too, dancing around with a (literal) “FREAK” flag, accenting an already-interesting voice with wolf howls and other fun stunts, and placing the trombone strains at exactly the right place to rev up the intensity. Like if the Matrix theme song was built on fine musicianship and Crescent City brass.

Whatever you call it, it was definitely a rush.

Sunday’s Tom McDermott/Meschiya Lake set was a real treat, especially for someone who’s seen each artist plenty of times in other contexts but never together in their popular duet.

McDermott is truly in a league of his own as a New Orleans pianist. There’s scarcely any sound more pleasant to listen to, especially sitting in the shade by the water on a sunny Sunday afternoon. He sounds like James Booker crossed with a bubbling brook.

Lake’s powerful, compelling voice and riveting stage presence continue to bring life and dark emotion to old jazz standards, as well as tunes like Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ Man.”

Embodying both a cheeky, flirtatious energy and a world-weary hauntedness, she seems a true torch-carrier of Bessie Smith and the other great romantic figures of the era.

The Abita Stage closed out Saturday evening with the lovely, hypnotizing compositions of four-piece instrumental rock group Woodenhead, who celebrated four decades of playing together this year.

They don’t perform too often, but you can catch them once a month at Checkpoint Charlie’s.

From the danceable second line energy of Funky Dawgz Brass Band to the swampy, funky blues of Papa Mali (whose band was killing it Sunday) to headliners Mannie Fresh, Dumpstaphunk, and Terrance Simien (the rain held off Friday evening until his very last number, a Band cover, crashing down right after he sang, “take a load off, Annie,”) the list goes on and on.

See you out there next year.