When Animal Collective came to the 9:30 Club last spring, the show sold out before I.M.P.’s email blast had even announced the soft sale. But when the band’s new visual album, Oddsac, hit the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring on Wednesday, there were enough empty seats in the house that one of the movie’s promoters encouraged the 8 p.m. audience members to stay for the 10 p.m. screening.

Why the disparity? Oddsac (which had been in production over the past three years) is the sort of bizarre and self-indulgent work that probably wouldn’t get much attention if hadn’t come on the heels of the intensely successful (and surprisingly accessible) Merriweather Post Pavilion. Not to mention that while last year’s release had a joyous streak throughout the album, the band’s music for Oddsac accompanies director Danny Perez’s nightmare-inducing imagery with an equally jarring score. Accessibility was clearly not their concern.