Magmatic garnet, together with epidote, is a rare mineral association in cordilleran-I-type granitoids and of special petrogenetic significance. The metaluminous to slightly peraluminous (ASI = 0.97–1.07) Galiléia batholith (Brazil) is a large (ca. 30,000 km2), Neoproterozoic (ca. 632–570 Ma) weakly foliated calc-alkaline granitoid body, characterized by the widespread occurrence of garnet (grossular 25–43 mol%) and epidote (pistacite 9.3–22.7 mol%). Field, petrographic and mineral chemical evidence indicates that garnet, epidote, biotite as well as white mica crystals (low-Si phengite), are magmatic. There is no difference in bulk rock major and trace element composition between the Galiléia granitoids and other garnet-free cordilleran-type granitoids worldwide. This evidence strongly suggests that the origin of the uncommon garnet + epidote parageneses is related to the conditions of magma crystallization, such as pressure, temperature and water content. Comparison between the mineral assemblages and mineral compositions from this study and those recorded in crystallization experiments on metaluminous calc-alkaline magmas, as well as within garnet-bearing metaluminous volcanic rocks and granitoids, indicates that the supersolidus coexistence of grossular-rich garnet, epidote and white mica is consistent with magma crystallization at pressures greater than 0.8 GPa (above 25 km depth) and at temperatures below 700 °C, i.e. near the water saturated solidus. Furthermore, resorption textures around garnet (plagioclase ± quartz coronas) and epidote suggest that these minerals have been partially consumed prior to complete crystallization. These findings demonstrate that at 630 Ma the crust underneath the Araçuaí Orogen was already at least 25–30 km thick and relatively cool. However, this contrasts with the marked high heat flow registered from the neighbour Carlos Chagas Batholith located 50 km to the east. In fact such granitoids record granulite-facies metamorphism at the same pressure and time (ca. 570 Ma) of Galiléia granitoids crystallization. Thus, a more suitable geodynamic scenario is required in order to explain these two contrasting thermal regimes within the same orogen. Eventually, field, petrographic and mineral chemical analogies with similar garnet-bearing granitoids located in the fore-arc settings of the British Columbia subduction zone, possibly imply that the Galiléia granitoids represent “rare” garnet- and epidote-bearing metaluminous Cordilleran-I-type granites which can only form in a fore-arc setting.