Recently, neuronal avalanches have been observed to display oscillations, a phenomenon regarded as the co-existenceof a scale-free behaviour (the avalanches close to criticality) and scale-dependent dynamics (the oscillations). Ordinarycontinuous-time branching processes with constant extinction and branching rates are commonly used as models of neuronalactivity, yet they lack any such time-dependence. In the present work, we extend a basic branching process by allowing theextinction rate to oscillate in time as a new model to describe cortical dynamics. By means of a perturbative field theory, wederive relevant observables in closed form. We support our findings by quantitative comparison to numerics and qualitativecomparison to available experimental results.