It was one of the first truly crisp nights of October when Willow Smith took the stage at Sony Hall in New York. Beneath the iconic music venue’s starry ceiling, a crowd of undeniably cool concertgoers milled through the smoky atmosphere like ants swarming a popsicle-splattered sidewalk. The crowd erupted in applause when the singer and youngest of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s children emerged from the velvet curtains—a vision in persimmon lace and chartreuse silk, with a striking wash of lavender shadow across the eyes. Why purple? I later asked the singer when we rendezvoused in a cozy green room several flights below the stage after the show. “Purple is the color of the third eye chakra,” she replied coolly. The intentionality of her artistry—from the thrumming beats of her spiritually charged music to the symbolism of her Dior makeup choices—is not lost on me as we dive into the beauty behind her latest album, The Thread.

At just 25 years old, The Thread marks Smith’s eighth solo album. But it’s not merely a new project for the artist: Smith refers to the collection as “a devotional album,” one inspired by nature, the different chapters of her life, and an inner sense of homecoming as she continues to forge her journey. “It feels like a sense of an arrival at a certain point in my career,” she explains. “Obviously there’s so much more to go, but The Thread is a through line through every different era that I’ve ever been through.” And Smith is the first to acknowledge the bold beauty choices that have marked each one.