On his forthcoming third album, MCIII, the Los Angeles-based Cronin pays tribute to that turning point with a conceptual six-song suite called Circle that makes up the record’s entire second side. “I was really interested in making a concept record, but about a story that’s personal to me and not based in fantasy,” he says, aware of the prog fantasias that often come to mind when artists drop the “concept” tag. “I've always wanted to be honest with the music I've made under my own name—not necessarily confessional, but finding the universal aspects of my own experiences. That's why I thought it would be interesting to base that whole side off of a true story that’s not the craziest story in the world; it's relatable in the fact that it's not fantastical.”

Mikal Cronin: "Made My Mind Up" (via SoundCloud)

Musically, MCIII has a lot in common with MCII. It’s fuzz pop made huge with string sections and orchestral arrangements. The main difference: His sound has gotten even bigger. Where there was only one string player on MCII, there’s a whole quartet (along with two horn players) on MCIII. That’s not counting Cronin himself, who plays guitar, bass, drums, other percussion, piano, organ, saxophone, and a Greek stringed instrument called a tzouras. Structurally, though, the album’s blueprint was cribbed wholesale from Kate Bush’s 1985 classic Hounds of Love—an LP split in two distinct parts. “The A-side of that album is just self-contained hits and the B-side is this crazy, dark weird concept record,” Cronin says. “I straight up stole that idea—not to say my A-sides are hits, though.”