A rural-Georgia native whose first word was Elvis, Willow Avalon grew up playing piano in church, taught herself guitar at age 12, and soon started writing songs as a form of escape and salvation. After leaving home at 15 and briefly living in her car, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter made her way to California and eventually settled in New York City, where she resides in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment transformed into her own outlandish wonderland.