Coma Girls, courtesy Gabriela Gonzalez.

Chris Spino, who records and performs as Coma Girls, loves a well-crafted pop song. He’s played everything from doo-wop to jazz fusion and metal.

However, “the thing that’s always stayed really central with me is good songwriting,” he says.

Spino has been through a lot the past couple years, including a breakup and getting sober, and he poured all of it into his new album, No Umbrella for Star Flower, which he’ll release on Sept. 2.

In a video call, Spino was, by turns, funny and forthcoming about the making of his album and the video for his new single, “Knife.”

No Umbrella for Star Flower is folky like Spino’s previous work, but it also has a definite shoegaze vibe to it.

“I wanted it to be deeply personal, and almost tragic, ’cause that’s just where I was at at the time,” he says. “I was struggling with depression and anxiety.”

Spino had moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles to make music in 2015, but in trying to make it, he found himself in a downward spiral.

“Even though I was broke, I was pretty much spending all my time at parties and bars, trying to shake hands and make good contacts,” he says.

Eventually, this led to homelessness.

“I was jumping couch to couch, just doing drugs and staying out all night,” he says, shaking his head. Spino found a job and a place to live, but he said the realization that he had to change things was gradual. “It took a long time for me to think, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be going out to bars every night!’”

Having found stability and sobriety, he says he’s doing what he came to L.A. to do: working on music and hanging out with positive influences. He feels like he’s in a good place now. Spino has been playing guitar and writing songs since he was in his early teens. It’s always been a big part of his life, he says, gesturing at the guitar by his bedside. When he recently finished a handful of songs he was happy with, he went to friend and producer Christian Paul Philippi to record an EP. Spino found that the recording process brought him inspiration to write more songs, and soon he had enough for a full album.

Spino and Philippi play almost all the instruments on the album.

“I’ve finally come to a place where I feel like I can play all these parts and don’t need someone better than me to come in and play them,” he says. He passed his ideas to Philippi and felt comfortable seeing where the producer would take them. Each new song they recorded became their favorite, including album closer “Knife.”

Spino directed the video for “Knife,” basing it partly on his own experiences with homelessness. It takes place in Echo Park, in a park where Spino himself slept on occasion when he first moved to L.A. In the video, Spino is robbed (in real life someone tried to steal the backpack he was using as a pillow as he slept).

“He was dragging me through the park by my backpack,” he says. “I was holding on for dear life because I had something very important in it.”

Back when he made the video, Chris Spino was still drinking. Showing off his ink-covered arms, he says that he also didn’t have any tattoos back them. He has long hair now but he used to cut it short. He says the video is fun to watch now partly because it feels like he’s seeing someone else entirely in it.

The video is his way of offering social commentary on the housing crisis in Los Angeles, but it’s also cinematic, with a twist at the end.

“[No Umbrella for Star Flower illustrates] the tail end of a time when I was honestly relapsing on drugs constantly, and in and out of a relationship,” Spino says. “I put everything into this record and I think you’ll find, if you listen to it, that I’m extremely vulnerable on it.”

Writing songs about the experience proved therapeutic; he calls it a healthy release. He says he also doesn’t mind playing these songs in front of audiences now.

“Sad music has always made me happy,” he says, listing off writers like Elliott Smith and David Berman of Silver Jews in addition to the Beatles and Beach Boys. But then he throws a curveball: His favorite album growing up was Middle of Nowhere by Hanson. He comes ready to defend it, too.

“The structure of those songs and the camaraderie of it, with the group dynamic and the harmonies and the great songwriting,” he says. “There’s really depressing songs on it too, as well as really happy-go-lucky stuff. It’s everything I really like about pop music.”

When on stage, Spino says he likes for Coma Girls to “play pop music like a punk band.” He’s not as worried about the performance being dialed in and perfect like he does in the studio.

“I want it to be interesting, and I want it to be real. That’s what I’m going for,” he says.

It helps that he’s playing with friends he trusts both as musicians and as people. He’ll play his first show since before the pandemic at the Echo in Echo Park next week.

Is he ready?

“I’m always ready,” he says, smiling. “This is what I came here to do.”

Follow Rachel Alm at Twitter.com/thouzenfold and Instagram.com/thousandfold.