When Kyle Morton was a small boy, an insect bite changed his life forever. Undiagnosed for years, the Lyme disease transferred through the bite wreaked havoc on his body, cutting off possibilities, shaving away precious time, and placing Morton eye-to-eye with the imminent reality of death. For many, this would be ample fodder for nihilism, but Portland’s Typhoon, a sonorous eleven-person folk ensemble, is a thing of sublime grace and beauty. Each song is an act of love, grace, and harmony — even (especially!) at the edge of the abyss.

Few bands command the kind of serenity and grace that Typhoon joyously projects. Eleven members strong, complete with multiple guitarists, drummers, trumpet players, violinists, bassists, and singers, Typhoon covered every inch of Brighton Music Hall’s stage on Sunday night, a merry company of dear friends after a wailing and precise set by fellow Portland band Radiation City. Unlike so many shows immersed in darkness and anonymity, Typhoon’s set was all light and warmth, a sea of faces and bodies and deep, huge sound under glowing fairy lights. Morton’s brother and sister, came all the way from Portland, watched with the rapturous audience as the band moved through a luscious 12-song set, featuring songs from their latest album, White Lighter as well as their 2012 contribution Hunger and Thirst.

Typhoon’s music is sensitive and gorgeous, painstakingly orchestrated to showcase every instrument, from delicate trills of violins and twinkling bells to powerful bass riffs and earth-shaking drum reports. It’s as if a thousand lesser folk bands suddenly grew a soul.

Morton sings out impassioned lyrics (“I thought we’d live forever/A simple obstacle in the way/ let it go, let it go, let it go”) with nuance and grit, often joined by bandmates in crystalline harmony. Somehow, Typhoon’s eleven members seem like one organism — they move together, leaning into each swell and curve of the music.

Highlights from the show included “Morton’s Fork” (a reference to a philosophical problem in which one is faced with two equally bad choices), a heart-rending song full of fear and bravery; the band’s new single “Dreams of Cannibalism,” and “Common Sentiments,” roaring, ferocious and intense. Each song addresses life, death, and the choices facing each of us — the choice to be honest, to be loving, to wish one another well. Typhoon is cheekily self-described on their Facebook page as “death affirming,” but it is life that Typhoon brings to the stage. Life and love and vitality.

The band graciously performed a three-song encore, ending with “The Sickness Unto Death,” quiet, unpretentious, and brutal: “They say we’re all dying, that we’re all dying/But if you are dying, why aren’t you scared/Why aren’t you scared/Like I’m scared?”.

Typhoon takes the human heart and turns it inside out, revealing the wet and vulnerable parts within. They touch on something terrifying and impossible with nimble fingers and remind us with a scream, a crash, and a swell that the unknown carries a vital beauty all on its own. Death affirming, indeed.