As MICO’s creativity carried him from URL spaces to IRL stages, his work also grew increasingly personal. Viral bops like 2022’s “cut my hair” found him struggling with maintaining his identity amid romantic ruin, while 2024’s streaming hit “HOMESICK” sets the scene for the disconnect that fuels When the lights turn on. On new song “Like you mean it,” he pleads with a partner to face the facts of their uneven love: “You can’t call it healing, running from a feeling / I can’t be the only good thing that you’ve got / So love me like you mean it, not like you need it.” But on the next track, “Do it all again,” he’s the one chasing a connection that’s doomed to fail.

But sometimes the rift gets closed, as on “Your favorite flowers,” which embodies a sweetly teenaged suburban intimacy with its gentle acoustics and story of two best friends working out their feelings for each other amid major life shifts. “There was a brief moment where this friend and I started seeing each other, then everything fizzled out,” MICO says. “We hadn’t talked in a year, and then we reconnected. We didn't know where we stood anymore, but after having an intense conversation, it felt like at that moment, we had learned how to be true friends again.”