Prioritizing the visual aspect of her music from early on, twigs released videos for all four songs on EP1, none of which showed her face. In early reviews of singles from EP1, some outlets even referred to twigs as “an outfit” or “group,” so little information was out there about who he/she/it was. Behind the scenes, it was pretty clear that a star had been born: EP1 led to twigs being signed by Young Turks.

EP2, released in September 2013, was finished with the help of a new producer, Arca (who’s since worked with Kanye West and Björk). She now had a label, but due to a trademark lawsuit from unknown kid-pop band, The Twigs, she had to tack the FKA onto her childhood nickname (“twigs,” for the way her bones make cracking sounds when she dances).

By the time her debut album, LP1, arrived last August—with twigs’ face brazenly stamped on the cover (as if it had been bruised or spray-painted red, no less), underground buzz had turned into a deafening roar of hype. Augmenting twigs’ own production—merging R&B, choir, trip-hop, and electronic music—heavyweights Arca, Emile Haynie, Dev Hynes, Paul Epworth, Sampha, and Clams Casino contributed work to the record. The album was received with universal acclaim, including a nomination for Britain’s prestigious Mercury Prize.

For all the praise that streamed in, there were also pitfalls. That small legal issue with The Twigs became a widely publicized problem, prompting the possibility of FKA twigs having to change her entire performing name altogether (the suit has since been withdrawn). And of course, a new reality of fame came along: racist swipes and vague threats on social media, made over her mixed-race heritage. Last September, twigs took to Twitter, and struck back: “I am genuinely shocked and disgusted at the amount of racism that has been infecting my account the past week,” she wrote. “Racism is unacceptable in the real world, and it’s unacceptable online.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m completely numb to it now, but there’s definitely a numbness there,” she says of the attacks, picking at the gaps in her fingerless black gloves. Six months later, on the “Glass & Patron” set, twigs appears unfazed by the detractors, directing a video for a song about being yourself and accepting who you are (“I just want for you to love you”). It’s far from the harmonic opener of LP1, “Preface,” which is adapted from the work of a 16th-century poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt. On it, she repeatedly intones: “I love another, and thus I hate myself.”

“Looking back on when I did LP1, I had a really deep, weird self-loathing,” twigs explains carefully, between sips of hot water and lemon. “I was weirdly self-harming through the people who I was forcing on myself,” qualifying that she knows this kind of thing is “actually quite normal, as a young person.”

“The two years previous to me doing LP1, I just didn’t have a lot of….” She momentarily loses her voice, trailing off. “I didn’t have a lot of respect for my heart.”

“Now,” she says, “I have way more respect for my heart.”

“Today was supposed to be my day off, but”—she squints across the table—“I’m doing this.” It’s a beautiful, marigold morning in Los Angeles, three weeks after we first met in London, and FKA twigs has made one thing clear: She’s not psyched for our follow-up. On arrival at what we’ll describe as (per her repeated requests) an undisclosed location in L.A., it’s hard not to feel like this interview is at best a nuisance, and at worst a full-on intrusion, taking up one of her two days off for the next few weeks. It’s not that she’s particularly rude or unpleasant, but it seems like doing press just isn’t something she relishes. And while this may be true of many people who end up on the covers of magazines—to credit her with realness—twigs isn’t great at hiding it.

That’s how we ended up back in the same room, again, on the far side of another continent: I’m here to watch new videos from EP3 and ask questions we didn’t get around to in London, partially because twigs spent a decent chunk of our time venting her various frustrations with the press.

To be fair, her interactions with some interviewers sound absolutely inane. After LP1 came out last summer, one journalist asked: “Can I hear your bones crack?” She imitates another one, who expected an answer to the declarative: “I hear you’re a control freak.” The entire experience made her reconsider the career she’d worked so hard for. “If this is what being an artist is,” she recalled thinking, “I’m just not really sure this is for me. This”—the press cycle— “is horrific. I could be doing dance class right now.”