It's always a struggle (for the "spirit/atmosphere crowd") to promote a thing and not leave a bad taste in your mouth after doing so. I don't have good solutions, but I think it's worth the fight to keep it close to what you are feeling.

The story that came to my mind was when Rush (the band) failed to promote their "Caress of Steel" album and their record label insisted that the next record should be more commercial. They ignored this totally and recorded a long, progressive, radio-unfriendly LP that won the hearts of fans and the rest is history :)

Of course, this story is tainted with survivorship bias a bit, but still shows that it can be done if your heart is in the right place and in my opinion it's worth the risk.

Fingers crossed :)