Will Meyer collaborates once again with Future Islands' lead singer Samuel T. Herring - he directed the UKMVA-winning video for BadBadNotGood's I Don't Know featuring Herring in 2018 - for Moonlight, from the forthcoming new album As Long As You Are. It is a dissection of a relationship stuck in the doldrums, featuring actors Matthew Gray Gubler and Callie Hernandez, who go through a mysterious process to rediscover their chemistry.

The couple are stuck in a purgatorial hotel room, disconnected from each other. When Hernandez leaves the room she triggers thoughts of moments from their relationship. Then cracks in the room appear, and then the process repeats. Each time either of them leave the room the memories appear, and get happier, and the cracks in the room get larger. 

Finally the walls come tumbling down. It is a metaphor with a positive message that feels very much a reaction on the stresses and strains caused to relationships by lockdown life. 

WILL MAYER: 

The room crumbling around them corresponds to that of their egos and personal walls.

“'Moonlight is a song about love in a depressive state. It’s about recognizing the holes in ourselves and recognizing the circular whole of others. It's about acceptance because that’s what love allows us all.

"My partner Alyssa [Bonanno] and I came up with the idea for the song after a late night conversation with Samuel T. Herring. He expressed the song was about being stuck in a relationship but feeling unlovable in some way. Trapped in a sort of depression not wanting to bring the other person down with you. 

"We shot it only four days prior [to release] so the whole process was a half week of sleepless nights and chaos, but we're really excited by how it came together. We had two incredible actors offer to come on for it, Callie Hernandez from LaLaLand & Alien, along with Matthew Gray Gubler from Life Aquatic and 500 Days of Summer. 

"We ended up coming up with a concept that looped, where the each time one of the character sought an escape from the room they were thrust into a non-linear tangent of fragmented memories. Eventually, the room crumbling around them corresponds to that of their egos and personal walls as they move past themselves and come together.

"We shot the room scenes on digital and the memories on 16mm which we purposely distorted. We shot on Friday, had film developed Saturday, edited Sunday, coloured Monday and released Tuesday."