Powershell Copy-Item -recurse does not pick up new directory - powershell

Question

I'm creating a binary PS module with PlatyPS help. I have a local poor-man's deploy script like this (PS 5.1):
$modulepath= "$Env:USERPROFILE\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules"
$releasePath = ".\bin\release\net472"
# build project
dotnet build -c release
# build documentation
# requires PlatyPS module
New-ExternalHelp -Path .\docs -OutputPath $releasePath\en-US -Force
ls $releasePath # debug
# copy files
Get-ChildItem -Path $releasePath | Copy-Item -Destination $modulepath\PoshCommence -Recurse -Force
ls $modulepath\PoshCommence # debug
This ouputs the following surprising result:
Directory: X:\CustomModules\PoshCommence\bin\release\net472
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 17-2-2021 00:31 en-US
-a---- 17-2-2021 00:24 36352 PoshCommence.dll
Directory: C:\Users\XXX\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\PoshCommence
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a---- 17-2-2021 00:31 871 about_PoshCommence.help.txt <- from en-US folder
-a---- 17-2-2021 00:24 36352 PoshCommence.dll
-a---- 17-2-2021 00:31 141080 PoshCommence.dll-Help.xml <- from en-US folder
None of the directories exist prior to running the script. I deleted the 'bin' project folder as well as the 'PoshCommence' module folder.
It seems either Get-ChildItem or Copy-Item -Recurse do not pick up the newly created 'en-US' directory, but the contents of it do get copied to the root level. If I run the script a second time (without deleting folders), it works as expected (except I still have docs stuff in the root of the module I don't want).
That has me stumped. I have tried -Verbose on everything, I put Start-Sleep after every line thinking operations may need time, but to no avail. Why isn't the 'en-US' folder picked up the first time?

Answer 1

Answering my own question. My confusion stems from the fact that
Copy-Item -Path $source -Destination $destination -Recurse
Works differently depending on whether the folder in $destination already exists or not.
So in the end all it took was
if (!(Test-Path $modulepath\PoshCommence)) { mkdir $modulepath\PoshCommence }
prior to the copying.