Photo Credit: Jordan Curtis Hughes

When Bea Kristi decided to release her first single, “Coffee,” in 2017, she didn’t think anyone would be listening. So, when a friend asked what name she wanted on her Bandcamp account, she told them to use her finsta handle, “beabadoobee.” For those over the age of 25, “finsta” is short for “fake Instagram,” and is essentially an account that features an authentic, real version of your life for your closest friends to see (in contrast to a filtered, curated account ironically considered your “real Instagram”). As she told ­i-D of her handle turned stage name, “I think it’s funny and it sounds like a Minion on acid…I thought no one was going to listen to that song anyway. Now I’m fucked.” Unsurprisingly, the name stuck. So did the honest, unedited feeling of a finsta.

With lyrics like, “You said I fucked up and ruined your life but little did you know you ruined mine,” Bea is practically writing whimsical, bedroom pop straight from the captions of her Gen-Z followers’ posts. Unfazed by her over 36 million streams on Spotify and being signed to Dirty Hit (the independent label of the 1975, Pale Waves, and The Japanese House), she continues to write from her bedroom with the same exposed, hide-nothing approach.

After releasing two killer singles, “She Plays Bass” and “I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus,” this week Bea released her latest EP, Space Cadet. With those singles and the opening track of the EP, “Are You Sure,” Bea steps away slightly from the gentle vocals and simple melodies she leaned on for her earlier EP, Loveworm, and debut single “Coffee,” and instead transports listeners to a place resembling the 90s with her references and louder, larger sound. Obsessed with her soothing bedroom pop sound? Bea’s still got you – “Sun More Often” and the title track on Space Cadet both channel this softer sound, with a little added edge.

In her latest music video, for the song “I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus” Bea is frantically coloring a Barbie’s hair blue to match her own hair, abducted by aliens, and screaming in a glass box as scientists observe her. Yeah, it’s got a lot going on.

Even if you finished the video wondering what exactly you just saw, it’s clear Bea’s brain is overflowing with creativity just like the drawings covering the walls of the room in the music video. Unafraid of embracing “quirky” as seen in the video, Bea has amassed a significant following including 1.3 million monthly listeners, of which Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement) is one. When she released this particular single, Malkmus retweeted the song saying, “This trippz me out,” and later met up with Bea in person, hanging with her on her tour bus (she’s currently on her first US tour, opening for Clairo).

The not-so-hidden gem of Space Cadet lies in the third track, “Sun More Often.” As she told her Instagram followers while doing a Q&A about the new EP, she wrote the song as a reminder to get outside and not isolate herself. Made clear in the lyrics, “You should go out and see the sun more often. If you tried, you’ll see that the world’s not as scary as it seems,” she recognizes that getting out of your shell may feel daunting and yet is necessary. For all of us who easily get stuck in our own heads (and bedrooms), “Sun More Often” is a simple, meaningful nudge outside our comfort zones. We could all use a little more sun, and a little more human connection.

Even with difficult themes like chaotic, crumbling relationships and the anxiety around being misunderstood, Bea aims to leave her listeners with a sense that everything is going to be okay. As she told Vice, “Even though it’s shit right now, it’s gonna be fine. I feel like there’s not a lot of music that explores subjects which are quite scary to talk about, like people don’t talk about scary feelings that are intimidating, but it’s okay to have intimidating feelings.”

Much like a finsta, Bea’s music focuses on intimate themes of insecurity, isolation, identity, and social pressure. While most of us, on finstas and elsewhere, keep our insecurities private and hidden, Bea lets us in on hers. Space Cadet is effectively her latest diary entry, shared publicly. It’s worth a listen: you’re guaranteed to feel less alone (and maybe a little tripped out) afterwards.