When her haunting smash hit “Ocean Eyes” made waves in 2016, Billie Eilish established herself as a new kind of pop star–an awkward teenage introvert peddling in chilling melodies, moody beats and creepy videos. Fully embracing sadness, pain and self-loathing, Billie’s debut album is a melancholic exploration of the darker spaces that linger in the back of our minds—an excavation of the human condition. “My whole life I’ve always been a melancholy person,” says Billie. “That’s my default.” Billie’s older brother and musical co-creator Finneas O’Connel says, “There are moments of profound joy, and Billie and I share a lot of them, but when our motor’s off, it’s like we’re rolling downhill. But I’m so proud that we haven’t shied away from songs about self-loathing, insecurity, and frustration… When you’ve supplied empathy for people, I think you’ve achieved something in music.” Both beleaguered and fascinated by night terrors and sleep paralysis, Billie has a complicated relationship with her subconscious. “Every song on the album is something that happens when you’re asleep—sleep paralysis, night terrors, nightmares, lucid dreams,” she says. “I’m the monster under the bed, I’m my own worst enemy.” Billie’s blatant, raw authenticity has made her a role model of sorts for young people who may have been written off by the mainstream as nihilists. “I love meeting these kids, they just don't give a fuck,” Billie says. “And they say they don't give a fuck because of me, which is a feeling I can't even describe. But it's not like they don't give a fuck about people or love or taking care of yourself. It's that you don't have to fit into anything, because we all die, eventually.” An endearingly off-kilter mix of teen angst and experimentalism, Billie Eilish really is the perfect star for 2019. “This is my child,” she says of her album, “and you get to hold it while it throws up on you.” Unabashedly messy, raw, heavy, and avant-garde, this first thought catalogue of Billie’s undoubtedly heralds greater things to come.