Songfacts®:

• "Possession" is Melanie Martinez' exploration of an abusive relationship through vivid, unsettling imagery that blends domestic life with psychological terror. Told in the first person, the song finds the singer trapped in a cycle of objectification, gaslighting, and forced submission.
• Martinez uses the familiar props of domestic life - fragility, ownership, obedience - to make the horror feel uncomfortably close. This is a technique she's used before. Where "Cry Baby" once wept in technicolor, "Possession" tightens the screws, replacing childhood symbolism with something colder and more adult. The terror here isn't implied; it's furnished.
• "Possession" isn't drawn from any specific real-life relationship; when Melanie Martinez broke up with her boyfriend of three years, Verde (Justin Greenwood), in early 2025, both expressed mutual respect. Instead, Martinez frames it as a broader examination of how power disguises itself as affection, and control wears the mask of care. Warner Music described the track as one that "peels back the ways power can masquerade as love."
• Martinez co-wrote the song with CJ Baran, who also produced it in full, handling bass, keyboards, sequenced drums, synth programming, engineering, and production. Baran's creative relationship with Martinez dates back to his co-writing and producing "Pity Party" from her debut album, Cry Baby. He later served as executive producer on her 2023 album Portals.
• The drum work was performed by Rhys Hastings, a touring and studio drummer whose resumé includes work with Angel Olsen, Kim Gordon and Mark Ronson. He previously collaborated with Martinez on five tracks from her Portals album, including the singles "Death" and "Void."
• "Possession" introduces Circle, the central figure of Martinez's fourth album and a clean break from the Cry Baby trilogy. Circle is a manufactured pop star extracted from a secluded cult and repurposed by Hades Tech, a fictional corporation that reimagines the Greek god of the underworld as a tech conglomerate determined to replace human creativity with artificial intelligence.
  
  Within that framework, "Possession" functions as Circle's origin story. The abusive relationship depicted can be read as the control she endured inside the cult, obedience framed as devotion, submission sold as safety, before being claimed by Hades Tech.