I think the following is difficult to understand:
'a' - like 'c', but only applies when the current working directory outside of CtrlP isn't a direct ancestor of the directory of the current file.
We were a little puzzled about it on #vim @ freenode too. Could you please add a succint relevant information on the homepage [1], to make it clear and quick to understand?
[1] http://kien.github.io/ctrlp.vim/