Wednesday, the California Legislature voted to restore $16.3 million in funding to the state's domestic-violence shelters previously cut by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during the latest round of apocalyptic budget crises. To many, those cuts seemed like a particularly callous solution to California's funds dilemma, given the small amount of money involved and the vulnerability of those who use the shelters' services.

The restoration of those emergency funds -- which are allotted for only one year and must be paid back to the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Fund -- still awaits Schwarzenegger's signature. But it is nonetheless cause for celebration. Many of the shelters faced impending closure without that money. But there's an unexpected pop musician whose late support might have been the needed final push to get the money back: Moby.

Two weeks ago, the New York-based electronica artist embarked on a publicity campaign to donate all profits from the California leg of his current tour to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence and embattled shelters, and he became a visible talking head rallying support for the effort to restore the shelters' funds.

"It was such an insignificant amount of money, it felt like somebody was going out of their way to be mean-spirited," he said, from his dressing room before his show Wednesday night at the Wiltern. "The people that use their services are the most disenfranchised of the disenfranchised. If these shelters are open, people's lives improve, and if they close, people die. There's nothing abstract about it."