Concept albums are nothing new, but it’s the lengths to which Lights takes her fourth album Skin & Earth that sets it apart. After introducing herself as the comic book alter-ego Captain Lights in 2008, the electro-pop artist (real name: Valerie Poxleitner) further colors outside the lines by pairing her next LP, due this fall, with a comic book series from Dynamite Entertainment that brings the music’s narrative to life. “I’ve always found a way to connect comics and music, but never so directly,” she says.

Three years in the making and inspired by female heroines like Wonder Woman, the project -- written pre-President Donald Trump but “definitely with some commentary on this part of the world,” she says -- tells the story of a girl named En in search of hope in a post-apocalyptic world. In the leadup to the album, Lights will release monthly comic book issues starting in July alongside corresponding songs. “As of now there are only six issues, and that completes the record,” she says. “But I don’t think it’ll end there. I’m not just letting it go.”

This article originally appeared in the May 27 issue of Billboard.