Eli Moon has the hand to paint with shades of melancholy and hope in the same stroke, and “Cocaine Dreamer” is the finished portrait, framing a romance that waxes and wanes. “Won’t say I need you,” the South-London artist promises himself before his desperation reveals itself: “I’m breaking without your touch now, girl.” His first release since 2020’s EP Angels, Devils & Empty Vessels, the song begins as star-infused R&B in the vein of Mariah the Scientist’s “2 You”: synth constellations and shimmers, bleary-eyed reverb, a full-bodied emptiness as if in space itself. The atmosphere breaks once he comes down to reality though—and the incredulity of how romance feels. “Who knew love could even exist without a wedding day?”, he asks, his voice enveloped in an Immunity-esque soft-rock clatter of syncopated drums and fuzzy guitar. By song’s end, Moon chooses joy as the two sounds coalesce, like light and dark on the cusp of a new day.