jmatt, by "second half" albums do you mean those made after they stopped touring, the "first half" being the earlier part of their career?
I whole-heartedly agree with the difficulty of ranking such apples and oranges. The Beatles were the chameleons of rock! They intentionally made different sounding records 'cause they were disappointed hearing their own favorite artists make several similar sounding new songs.
Rubber Soul, Abbey Road & Pepper are very fine albums, for sure. Very professionally done and well produced good listening with plenty of variety on each. Lots to enjoy.
Revolver was a major departure from their earlier mop-top sounds with hints of the psychedelia to come. The white album was a grab-bag of different styles & genres,
not to mention Revolution 9.

And Let It Be certainly has some transcendent songs along with some rough, unfinished edges (for lack of George Martin's production polish).
Yes, with those heavily psychedelic works the innate, light-hearted levels can be a bit deceptive to the deeper, more daunting, connotations. A bit of preparation before delving there is well considered.
Ah! Well, I'm curious if you've consciously chosen either the US or UK versions of The Beatles albums? As a mid-70s boomer myself I didn't have that choice, growing up in the US in the '60s. Indeed, I wasn't even aware of the differences, much less understand the significance of the "butcher cover" of the Yesterday And Today album. Since retirement, I've occasionally considered getting all the UK album versions to explore the differences, but just haven't taken the plunge yet.