Fariña met novelist, musician, and composer Richard Fariña in 1963 when she was 17 years old and married him at age 18 in Paris. The two collaborated on a number of influential folk albums, most notably, "Celebrations for a Grey Day" (1965) and "Reflections in a Crystal Wind" (1966), both on Vanguard Records. After Richard Fariña's death in 1966 (on Mimi's twenty-first birthday) in a motorcycle accident, Mimi moved to San Francisco where she flourished as a singer, songwriter, model, actress, and activist. She performed at various festivals and clubs throughout the Bay Area, including the Big Sur Folk Festivals, the Matrix, and the hungry i. Mimi briefly sang for the rock group the Only Alternative and His Other Possibilities. In 1967, Fariña joined a satiric comedy troupe called The Committee. That same year, she and her sister Joan Baez were arrested at a peaceful demonstration where the two were housed temporarily in Santa Rita Jail, personalizing the experience of captivity for her. In 1968, Mimi married Milan Melvin and continued to perform, sometimes recording and touring with either her sister Joan or the folksinger Tom Jans, with whom she recorded an album in 1971, entitled "Take Heart". Mimi and Milan divorced in 1971.