The rarest type in the game, and the one players write in about.
An anagram clue gives you the letters of the answer in a different order. It is the rarest clue type in Cryptune by a wide margin, and it is comfortably the one that generates the most affectionate messages from players.
The scarcity is not restraint, it is arithmetic. Most words do not have a good anagram. A good anagram is one where the rearranged letters form something that reads as natural language, ideally something that sounds like a phrase somebody might say, and the overwhelming majority of words simply do not have one. When a clue writer finds one, it feels less like invention and more like discovery.
The best of them have a quality that is hard to describe and obvious when you see it. The letters of a famous surname rearranging into a single ordinary English word, with nothing left over and nothing forced, is a small piece of luck that was sitting in the language the whole time waiting to be noticed.
Anagrams also have a property no other clue type has: they are completely verifiable. A synonym clue can be argued about and a soundalike depends on your accent, but an anagram either uses exactly the right letters or it does not. When you find the answer you know you have found it, with no doubt whatsoever, which is a rare and clean feeling in a game built largely on judgement.
Cryptune contains 49 anagram clues, which is 3% of every clue in the game, spread across 45 puzzles. They break down as 39 on artist puzzles, 6 on song puzzles, 4 on album puzzles.
artisan→SINATRA
From Nancy Sinatra. Seven letters, one ordinary English word, nothing left over. Probably the neatest anagram in the game.
I see TV→STEVIE
From Stevie Wonder. A phrase that is grammatical, faintly absurd and exactly the right letters. The absurdity is the signal that something is being rearranged.
cant mercy→MCCARTNEY
From Paul Mccartney. Nine letters is a lot to rearrange into anything readable. Note the double C, which is the awkward letter that gives the answer away once you start hunting for it.
rat bane→BENATAR
From Pat Benatar. Two short words for one surname. The clue means something unpleasant and completely unrelated, which is the point.
Nonsense is the signal. If a clue reads like a phrase that has been assembled slightly wrong, or contains a word used oddly, count the letters before assuming the clue is broken.
Count first, think second. Letter count is the cheapest test available and it eliminates almost every wrong guess instantly. If the count does not match a name you are considering, that name is wrong and no amount of staring will fix it.
Look for the awkward letters. Anagrams live or die on the rare letters, so if the clue contains a V, a K, a J or a Z, start by asking which names contain that letter. In practice the unusual letters usually solve the clue on their own.
A wider sample, clue on the left and the word it hides on the right.
Back to the clue school, or see how clue types vary across the eras on the decade pages.