If it takes doing an MCU movie, with all the corporate constrictions that entails, to plunge into the kind of exhilarating creative exorcism that Freaky Tales represents, then bring on the superhero as stepping-stone. Before they made Captain Marvel, longtime filmmaking duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck established their talents with three boldly idiosyncratic indies, Half Nelson, Sugar and Mississippi Grind. But nothing in those distinctive works can prepare you for the kinetic energy, the freewheeling imagination and the righteous battles — we’re talking rap and some serious blade slice-and-dice — of their love letter to the Bay Area and the pop-cultural imprint it left on Fleck as a kid in the ‘80s.

The tales of the title are four chapters all built around the theme of underdog victory, each of them different in texture and tone yet all ingeniously interconnected and all owing something to the big-screen aesthetics of the time.