Henry J. Star, behind the moniker stands Knoxville-born singer and songwriter Devin Badgett, who stitched together this identity like a quilt of memory, pain, and possibility.

His debut project is a living diary, a dreamscape shaped by Japanese adventure games, Southern literature, and the hushed glow of ambient soundscapes. It is both map and compass, tracing a journey toward understanding and hard-won healing.

Earlier this summer, Badgett cracked open the door to this world with the announcement of his first full-length album, ‘The Soft Apocalypse,’ arriving October 17 through Acrophase Records. The lead single, ‘Greenway,’ drew early comparisons to Youth Lagoon and Alex G, hinting at the fragile magic Badgett was conjuring.

Today, that magic deepens and darkens with the release of ‘Petrichor,’ a song as heavy as a storm cloud and as piercing as the first breath of rain. It begins with a single haunting question that lands like a punch to the chest: What if I die today?

From there, the track unspools into a reckoning with what it means to move through the world as a Black individual. It captures the exhausting calculus of existence itself, where even the simplest choices can carry unimaginable consequences.

“In memory of Ahmaud Arbery,” Badgett shares. “A story about running while Black and the paradox of choice. This song was written to underline how grandiose seemingly simple decisions can be for certain folks.”

‘The Soft Apocalypse’ was written, produced, and largely performed by Badgett alone, in the quiet corners of bedrooms and basements scattered across Tennessee. It is a self-portrait. The album holds the weight of Badgett’s own history: a father’s incarceration, the layered complexity of a multiracial identity, and the quiet loneliness of suburban streets. Music, for him, became a lifeline…a doorway to a world beyond the one he knew.

That sense of wonder first flickered to life in front of a worn VHS copy of The NeverEnding Story. “It was perhaps the first time I believed that a better world was not only possible, but worth fighting for,” Badgett recalls.

Headline photo: Tyler Krippaehne

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Acrophase Records Website / Facebook / Instagram