LOS ANGELES — Malcolm Todd is 22 with the whole world in front of him.

At least, that's what it feels like while sitting on the patio of his new house overlooking the windswept L.A. skyline on a recent afternoon. Inside the sparse, upscale abode, cardboard moving boxes are still scattered across the entryway, and his shelves lack ingredients. But when you walk up on his roof, a scenic view of his home city sprawls beneath Todd. In one corner, you can spot the Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios, and the San Gabriel Mountains surround its lookout. It's his first time living on his own, and while the new pad is adorned with Midcentury Modern furniture and eight guitars, almost everything else is a work in progress.

But that's OK. The singer doesn't mind being a work in progress.

"You're always learning and growing, and my music evolves with my personal life," Todd 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."

His new album, "Do That Again," is out Friday. It's his second album, but he's been releasing music since 2022, during his senior year of high school. This spring, he's been pushed to a new level of musical relevance with his song "Earrings" from his 2024 mixtape, "Sweet Boy." "Earrings" took over TikTok before entering the Top 10 on the Global Spotify chart. Todd described having a hit as a "little fun treat," but he doesn't want a song from two releases ago to dictate his current music style.

"I definitely don't feel like I have to grab onto it. I'm not really chasing hits. They're always nice, and to be rewarded for a song you care about is really cool," Todd 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."

The singer feels remarkably relaxed about his fame for an artist on the path to mainstream success. Before being interviewed at his home, he needed extra time to change from his gym shorts into a button-up and jeans for a photo shoot (he didn't seem to mind the giant hole in the inseam of his pants, either). Walking around in flip-flops and burning his incense while bags from Erewhon sit on his countertop, he exudes an aura of California-cool.

That makes sense given Todd's deep Los Angeles roots. His father, Tim Hobert, was a writer and executive producer of the nine-season ABC sitcom, "The Middle," for most of Todd's childhood (you can even spot him in a Season 4 episode of the show as a baseball player). His mother, Jill Tracy, worked in theater before slowing down to care for Todd and his three siblings.

These days, Todd's most famous family member is his older sister, Audrey Hobert. She penned her way into the music industry while co-writing on "The Secret of Us," a 2024 album by her childhood friend, Gracie Abrams. After enjoying that process, she released her debut album, "Whose the Clown?" in August 2025, just four months after Todd released his self-titled debut.

Todd reassured me that there was no sibling rivalry between the pair, laughing while explaining that in his family of six, "there's no room for that." This spring, the two showed their support by covering each other's song for Triple J's "Like a Version."

While the Hobert siblings grew up around Hollywood, Todd believes the biggest advantage he received was his family's support of his music career.

"It was definitely cool to have a creative dad, and I feel like [I had] creative genes passed down to me," Todd said. "As far as me feeling like I can do music, I would attribute that to my mom just being super supportive and making me feel like I could do anything."

Choosing music over college, however, wasn't an easy decision for his family. Todd's affinity for music began in his sophomore year at Palisades Charter High School when classes were moved online due to the pandemic. Alone in his bedroom, Todd taught himself how to play the guitar. He released his first EP, "Demos Before Prom," in the spring of his senior year. He enrolled at the University of Oregon in the fall but convinced his mom to let him drop out to pursue music.

"It was a week before I was supposed to go, where I made the decision that I wasn't going. I really backed out, and I was fighting my mama. She wanted me to go," he explained. "I convinced her to let me stay under certain rules. So I never touched a college campus. Never went for a second."

Todd filled his time eating ice cream while working at Cold Stone Creamery and producing music from his childhood bedroom. He found his audience on TikTok, after videos featuring his songs "Arthouse" and "Roomates" began racking in over a million views. Less than a year after he began posting on TikTok, Todd signed to Columbia Records in July 2023.

"I was just concocting like a lot of different sugary meals and eating it every day, and then going back home and making all these songs that have blown up," Todd said.

In those early TikToks, you can feel Todd's drive to make it in the music industry. He posted relentlessly, often comparing his music to artists like Steve Lacy and Omar Apollo to find his fans. And it worked. In 2024, Todd opened for Apollo on his world tour. Fast forward to today, and Todd has leveraged those comparisons to develop his own sound.

Todd's upcoming album builds upon the grooves of his previous work but feels more honest than past releases. In "Gun to My Head," Todd examines ending his relationship to chase stardom, writing "we were invincible/till' my second record deal." He takes accountability for his role in their dissolution, breathing vulnerability through the lyrics. He believes that "Do That Again" reflects a matured version of himself. He's an adult, living on his own and responsible for his own life and emotions.

"I'm always going to be Malcolm," Todd explained. "But I think I was just more evolved as a person, so I was able to be more evolved as a writer and a musician."

He wanted this to be reflected in the music video for his single "I Saw Your Face," in which he chose to "lean into male vulnerability." In the "Strong Boys Club," he and the grown men around him cry.

"I did this super sex bomb thing before, and I felt like this album has a lot of versatility," he said. "I wanted with my singles to show the range. I had my sexier song out, and I wanted to really lean on the other side of the spectrum and dig into something more emotional."

But accessing that vulnerability wasn't easy. On the last day of working on "I Saw Your Face," he "stripped it down and started the whole thing over" after toying with several versions of the song.

"I learned that I can go back to the drawing board and see a song through, and not just have it be this one-day, easy-going thing. It can be this real hard work that you have to dig in, and treat like a science experiment," Todd said. "It was a beautiful moment. It was very cosmic and powerful and exciting."

This flexibility is key to Todd's performance style. When he played the Fonda Theatre in April for the second anniversary of "Sweet Boy," there were several songs he'd never played live before. Drinking from a bottle of wine and jumping around the stage, he was casually captivating. It was about the music, not just the performance.

"I'm just trying to have fun up there, and I'm not chasing perfection by any means, he said. "So [I] just go into the show with that energy and try to have a blast, and usually if you have a blast, it radiates into the crowd."

He explained that he would rather "move in silence" than predict what his future performances may look like. He hopes to "crush a few festivals," but for now, he's focused on becoming Malcolm Todd: the musician and the person.

"I see myself continuing to grow as an artist and continuing to grow as a performer and continuing to grow as a human being," he said. "[I'll] put forth the effort and give all I have to my career."

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