Malcolm Todd is releasing his second album, Do That Again, on Friday, a move that puts the 22-year-old Los Angeles artist at the center of a sudden new level of attention. He is doing it while living in his first home on his own, with cardboard moving boxes still scattered across the entryway.

That timing matters because Todd’s name has been moving far beyond his existing fan base since “Earrings,” a song from his 2024 mixtape Sweet Boy, took over TikTok this spring and reached the Top 10 on Spotify’s Global chart. For listeners who found him through that track, Friday is the first chance to hear how he follows a song that turned into a calling card almost overnight.

Todd has been releasing music since 2022, when he started during his senior year of high school, and he says the growth has been less about chasing a formula than about learning to write through change. “You’re always learning and growing, and my music evolves with my personal life,” he said. “I think just growing up and taking more risks and being more open and having more perspective is where the biggest change has come.”

But the profile boost from “Earrings” has also created a familiar pressure point for a young artist whose biggest song is suddenly doing the talking for him. Todd described having a hit as a “little fun treat,” but said he is “not really chasing hits.” “They’re always nice, and to be rewarded for a song you care about is really cool,” he said. “As this has blown up, I’ve just been like, ‘OK, cool, people like that song.’ All I’m thinking really about is putting out new music.”

That push and pull between momentum and intention has played out inside a family already steeped in entertainment. Todd’s father, Tim Hobert, was a writer and executive producer of The Middle for most of his childhood, while his mother, Jill Tracy, worked in theater before slowing down to care for Todd and his three siblings. His older sister, Audrey Hobert, has also moved into music, co-writing on Gracie Abrams’ The Secret of Us before releasing her own debut album, Whose the Clown?, in August 2025.

Todd said there was no sibling rivalry. “there’s no room for that,” he said. For him, the question now is not whether “Earrings” can be repeated, but whether the new album can make room for the artist he says he is becoming as fast as the audience is catching up.