In a nutshell:  It’s an xdebug config problem.  Try increasing xdebug’s max nesting level in php.ini:

xdebug.max_nesting_level=1000

If you’re on a platform that supports separate php.ini files for both Apache and the command line, be sure you update the cli instance.

This little beauty has already stumped me twice. Thank goodness for Cordova’s obscure bit of advice.