It’s been an eventful week for Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos. Friday will see the official release of the Cambridge artist’s fourth record, “Tremendous Sea of Love,” a by turns euphoric and elegiac collection for which Angelakos, 30, stepped outside his label — and away from traditional collaborators — with the principal goal of connecting directly with listeners.

To wit, though the album is being released digitally and on streaming platforms this week, Angelakos initially made the new music available months ago, sending it directly to Twitter followers in exchange for retweets in support of the #weneedscience campaign. All royalties from the release, he’s announced, will be donated to the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute.

Unorthodox though it may be, the rollout — based on comments Angelakos made during a wide-ranging, in-depth interview with the Globe on Monday — may be Passion Pit’s new normal.

A fierce critic of the profits-over-people mentality he sees rife throughout the music industry, Angelakos — founder of the New York-based Wishart Group, which emphasizes mental wellness in providing legal, educational, and health care services to artists — says he’s committing full-time to his organization in hopes of reforming artist protections and breaking stigma around mental illness. For Angelakos, who’s been open about living with bipolar disorder and depression, as well as how his mental illnesses inform his artistry (“My music is audible bipolar,” he says by phone), few initiatives could be as important.

What does that mean for Passion Pit? Angelakos doesn’t see unshackling himself from industry expectations as an end so much as an evolution. “I don’t think I’m done making music,” he says. “I just want people to see I’m not the point, that I’m just an example. If I’m inspiring to anybody, that’s great, but I want to see tangible evidence of what that means — to put my money where my mouth is.”

Q. “Tremendous Sea of Love” signifies a shift in Passion Pit’s approach to releasing music. How did it come about?

A. The way the record came together was that I had a lot of songs lying around. I only have three full-length records in 10 years; [“Tremendous Sea of Love”] is not a technical record to my label [Columbia], and they were very kind as to let me have the royalties from it. I had sent versions of one or two of these songs to the label, because I just wanted to see what they wanted. That was my life, trying to make people happy. When I made [2008 EP] “Chunk of Change,” I made it for my friends, to have a dance party. I knew my audience, and that’s how I wrote “Sleepyhead.” I would let them come into my room and dance as I showed them parts of the song, as I was building it. But recently, I realized I had no idea who my audience was. And if you look at the way everything is structured with labels, working at a glacial step with such an extraordinarily archaic mode of controlling every step, it suddenly occurred to me, 10 years into my career, if I don’t know who my audience is, that’s probably why. It seemed like [the label] didn’t really need me, and I didn’t really need them.

Q. It feels like this release, then, was about circumventing the official channels to rediscover those people to whom Passion Pit matters most.

A. I didn’t know who was going to respond to it, but I just wanted to give them something. Despite what anyone said, it was probably the best way to deal with my mood swings, and by far the most successful manic episode I’ve ever had. It was my way of saying, “If people aren’t going to ask me how I’m doing, I’m going to ask them how they’re doing in a way that makes sense to them.” I’m just going to release music and see what they say. And they inspected the mixes — people would say they liked this part of it or leave comments, and I’d read them and agree. And we updated [the demos] several times, as a way of saying that it’s such a gift to be in this position.

Q. What drove the decision to undertake this kind of project now?

A. I’m in no position to just sit here and release another record. It’s not enough. None of this is enough — the way we’re talking about mental illness especially isn’t enough. What does someone like me do in this position? I go and try new things. I’ve been really successful with music while seemingly completely a failure in every other aspect of my life, I’ve dealt with some crazy circumstances, but at the end of the day I’m just a person who has a lot in common with other people. I hated it when I was tricked into thinking I was so different, and I hated the reason for that more than anything else. I had to unlearn that by doing something completely illogical: giving music away for free, for no reason other than that I want to know who you are.

Q. In March, you passed the band’s Twitter account off to neuroscientist Michael F. Wells, who discussed mental health issues under the hashtag #weneedscience. And now, through the Wishart Group, you’re continuing to prioritize that outreach. What has it been like to merge your music and advocacy so directly?

A. I cannot believe the fact that someone donating proceeds from one show is considered enough. That is a lot, and it’s great when an artist does that, but this is so much easier than that, actually. It’s so much simpler. It’s scary to think about your fanbase and who will react to what, but it’s kind of like having friends around you for certain reasons who stop hanging out with you when you’re yourself. They weren’t very good friends, were they? You only really need fans who you matter to.