Merrill Garbus is a founding member of the band Tune-Yards. The other regular member of the band is her partner Nate Brenner.  Back in 2009, Merrill recorded the first Tune-Yards album Bird-Brains on recycled cassette tape using a voice recorder and then self released it. The album was well received and led to the band being signed by 4AD records several months later.

Since Bird-Brains Tune-Yards has released four more albums including Sketchy, which was released this past March.  Merrill has described Sketchy as a rediscovery of the joy in making music.   She and Nate also do soundtrack work. In 2018 Tune-Yards scored the excellent Boots Riley movie Sorry to Bother You.