G rowing up in small-town Missouri in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Casey Gomez Walker was an indie kid, searching out the lyrics to her favorite songs by the Shins and LCD Soundsystem, scrolling through posts on Tumblr, and dreaming of a wider world. That was enough to make her stand out as different in a culturally conservative environment where the high school football team was the biggest thing in town. “Literally, the quarterback started a rumor that I worshiped the devil, which is truly hilarious, because I looked like I do now,” she says, laughing, over Zoom from her home in Chicago. “It’s not like I was wearing dark makeup or anything. I just wasn’t religious and sometimes wore black.”

In fact, she wasn’t a Satanist, nor even a goth — just an artistic spirit looking for the ri

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