To hear The Chapin Sisters perform their moody, lovelorn songs in heartbreaking three-part harmonies -- and to see them, with their milk-fed complexions, swathed in floaty white lace -- you’d think someone sprinkled pixie dust in your drink. Certainly, you weren’t still in a Lower East Side bar on a cold night in 2006, but rather, you’d been transported to a sunny, dandelion-filled meadow circa 1977.

But then you pay closer attention to one of their songs, and realize it sounds familiar, and not just because it’s been relentlessly played on L.A’s KCRW, but because it’s a cover of a Britney Spears song.

“There’s no escape. I can’t hide. I need a hit. Baby, get me it. You’re dangerous, I’m loving it…I’m addicted to you, but you know that you’re toxic,” moans the middle sister, Abigail Chapin, in a soft, slow voice so bewitching, it ensnares listeners and strips the initial smirk off their faces.

Comprised of Abigail and Lily Chapin (the “early-twenties”-aged daughters of Grammy-award-winning folk singer Tom Chapin), and their half-sister Jessica Craven (the “early-thirty” daughter of scream-king Wes Craven), the L.A-based band mixes feel-good folk with a wicked sense of humor and an undeniable coquettishness to create a wholly modern sound. Even their coordinated ‘70s-style ethereal dresses, paired with suede boots and long shiny hair, look like something off Chloe’s spring runway.

“When the three of us sing together, something magic happens,” admits Lily, who worked in film production until two years ago, when, like her sisters, she was lured away from her day-job by the music. (Abigail had been working in costume design at Nickelodeon; and Jessica, screenplay writing.) It was a spring weekend spent in a friend’s studio recording enchanting covers of Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun, Culture Club’s Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, and that big hit by Britney, which converted them all into professional crooners.

Now, singing all new self-written songs, the Chapin trio are luring a fashionable cult following from L.A. to Austin to NYC, where Libertine’s Cindy Greene and designer Cynthia Rowley showed up to hear them play.

“To be able to balance a music career with a nice life is really all we could ask for,” says Abigail, getting her folk up. “That’s something that MTV doesn’t understand.”

Hear Them:

For more info on the band, thechapinsisters.com
Be their friend: myspace.com/thechapinsisters
Get their self-titled debut EP: $12, cdbaby.com/cd/chapinsisters

Check out The Chapin Sisters’  favorite vintage stores in L.A:
The Way We Wore, 334 S. La Brea, Los Angeles, (323) 937-0878
Playclothes, 11422 Moorpark, Studio City, (818) 755-9559; vintageplayclothes.com