Why are musicians separating their albums in several releases?

Indie singer-songwriter Moses Sumney, pop-punk bandleader Hayley Williams, and country duo Maddie & Tae are dropping their new albums in two or more multi-song installments, divided by months.  “All of this comes down to streaming” - one indie label campaign manager explained to the Pitchfork. Nick Blandford, Sumney's publisher, said - “attention spans are short. We can’t change that. But we wanted to try and play with it a bit”. MusicWatch managing director Russ Crupnick is completely practical about it - “every study we do around social says the No. 1 thing fans want to hear about is new releases from their artists”.