Kimya Dawson is having a ‘moment’. Not that she necessarily relishes the moment, mind you, or knows quite what to make of it, but it’s happening.

It all has to do, of course, with this year’s ‘little movie that could’, ‘Juno’. The irresistible movie about life and family and love would not be what it is without Ellen Page’s standout performance, Diablo Cody’s insanely clever script – and, equally important, the sweet, wacky, and deceptively childlike songs of Dawson, the anti-folk princess and one time distaff half of the Moldy Peaches. Her songs spanning nearly a decade form the bulk of the ‘Juno’ soundtrack and give uncannily perfect musical voice to Page’s Juno MacGuff.

On the eve of that soundtrack jumping from number 8 to number 3 on the Soundscan chart, where was Kimya? Doing what she does best – playing to a packed room at Williamsburg’s Soundfix Records – a 90 minute set full of her brutally honest, alternately clever, crude, touching, hilarious tunes about the big and little stuff in life. Not only was the house full (’one of our biggest crowds ever’, Soundfix’s manager told me), with the all ages crowd sitting, standing, even on stage next to Kimya, campfire-style, but the line to get in stretched around the block, and an equal number had to be turned away.

‘I never looked at charts in my life,’ Kimya told me before the performance, ‘I’m not interested in being with a major label, I just make music and play shows. And I live in Washington state which I like because there people play music because they like music.’ So, what about this new much larger limelight she’s been thrust into thanks to ‘Juno’. ‘It’s all just weird. I’m mainly happy about it because I love the movie ‘Juno’ and I’m happy to be a part of it.’

It was no secret that MTV was in the house last night, so I have to wonder if it wasn’t more than coincidence that Kimya led off her show with the anti-corporate, non-conformist anthem ‘Viva La Persistence’ with it’s line ‘I don’t want my MTV’, which the crowd sang along to with particular gusto. But they sang along with a lot of the songs, which led me to believe this was no Juno-come-lately crowd. Her songs veered from the loopy (’I Like Bears’) to the personal (’My Mom’). There were tunes about the beginning of life (’Panda’, written for her adorable 18 month old daughter, Panda Delilah) and the end (’Underground’). She only played two of the ‘Juno’ tracks, the dream-inspired ‘Tire Swing’ and her closer, ‘Loose Lips’ with its genius chorus of ‘We won’t stop until somebody calls the cops/And even then we’ll start again/And just pretend that/Nothing ever happened.’ And even though most of her music has a light, delicate touch, Kimya never shies away from the dark stuff, as in the bleak ‘The Beer’ and ‘12/26′ her harrowing, heartbreaking tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Southeast Asia.

Kimya noted that the last time she played at Soundfix was four years ago, and that she played ‘for like four hours”. ‘I won’t be doing that tonight’ she said, which of course prompted an ‘awww’. Kimya explained, ‘C’mon guys I have a baby now. And pretty soon she’s gonna need things that only my ***s can provide.’

So, after an hour and a half, she was done. But Kimya cares about her other kids too. So much so that – remember the couple hundred or so fans that I said had to be turned away – she spur of the moment decided to play another show at Soundfix next Monday night, and walked the line taking names of everyone waiting on it! She’s a good egg that Kimya Dawson. And she was around before ‘Juno’, and will be around long after it’s gone.