Held in a Narnia-like forest glade nestled behind a row of shops just two miles from Birmingham city centre, the fourth Moseley Folk Festival fielded its most eclectic and starry bill to date last weekend. With its all-ages crowd and its elastic definition of folk music, this artfully presented three-day garden party felt more like a miniature Big Chill than a more traditional roots music festival.

There was a broad range of famous names on offer, from the Woodstock-era veterans Jethro Tull to neo-folkie gamine Beth Orton. Headlining and co-curating Friday’s musical menu, Saint Etienne revisited their 1991 debut album Foxbase Alpha in its entirety. Of course, these prototype Britpop confections owe less to folk than to house music and northern soul. But Sarah Cracknell still sashayed dreamily through a perennially lovely Only Love Can Break Your Heart and Nothing Can Stop Us.

Likewise, many more of the weekend’s acts had no obvious folk connections, but nobody seemed too bothered. Once emblematic of anorak-wearing 1980s indie-pop, the Glaswegian rockers the Pastels showcased their more mature and expansive side in a joint performance with their current collaborators, the offbeat Japanese duo Tenniscoats.

One of the festival’s coups was an ultra-rare appearance by the cult collective Comus, former David Bowie protégés from the avant-garde wing of 1970s folk rock, who disbanded 35 years ago. Now back in circulation with a new album imminent, Comus have lost little of their controlled menace over the decades.

Saturday was a tale of two Beths. After three years of low-profile motherhood, Beth Orton’s tremulous, smoke-damaged vibrato has acquired a pleasing new bite. But the most fun act of the weekend was Beth Jeans Houghton, a Tyneside teenager. Wearing comedy wigs and painted moustaches, Houghton’s band goofed around onstage, but her ghostly-voiced folk-pop songs sounded effortlessly confident and full of charm.

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