U.K.-born, California-raised Antony Hegarty felt like the consummate outsider until coming face to face with the image of Boy George on the cover of Culture Club's 1982 debut album, Kissing to Be Clever. Eight years later, Hegarty relocated to New York City and found a world more accepting of avant-garde sensibilities and sexual ambiguity. An early incarnation was the cabaret ensemble Blacklips, modeled after Blue Velvet-era Isabella Rossellini and the drag queen who graced the cover of Soft Cell's 1982 single "Torch."
Hegarty formed Antony and the Johnsons in 1998, and the b...