Now, Cara has always had a reputation as a music lover. She provided backing vocals on the sugary dystopia of St. Vincent's 'Masseduction' cut 'Pills' as well as the title track to Fiona Apple's 2020 album 'Fetch The Bolt Cutters'. In 2019, she appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and played the intro to Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Sweet Home Alabama' on an electric guitar behind her head. In another interview, she boasted she could do the same with her toes.

Her love affair with music began before she started school, performing dance routines with her sisters to 90s girl bands Spice Girls and All Saints. Cara tried piano lessons (they weren't for her: "Crotchets, quavers and sheet music? That was not a language I understood"), but when she saw someone badly playing on a drum kit, she was instantly drawn to the instrument. The lessons were easier too, and because she wasn't allowed to move around the kit until she'd nailed one drum, it was like a game with unlockable levels. She became obsessed with guitars around the same time. "The shape, the sound, I just think they're fascinating. I'd play with my right hand, my left hand… just always trying to challenge myself."

As fun as making loud noises was, it was singing that offered a teenage Cara, who suffered from insomnia, depression and anxiety, some much-needed therapy. "I would never talk about the things that were going on in my life when I was a kid, but for some reason, I could do that when I made music." So she'd tap into a free-flow state, sing spontaneous songs and have a good cry. "It was fantastic. It was groundbreaking. Singing was life-saving." Her complete lack of self-confidence meant she never actually wrote anything down. "I just felt stupid and thought I was a terrible writer."

That changed when she left school and she started writing poetry. "I was filled with so many words, I just had to write them down." And she didn't hate the results either. "It was so raw, painful and helped me understand my own brain." When she turned 19, she crossed paths with influential music mogul, Pop Idol creator and Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller, who invited her to make music in a professional studio for the very first time. It was a painfully different experience from creating soul-baring poetry by herself or teaching herself party tricks on the guitar, though.

"I would sing these incredibly sad songs and, after I left the room, the producers would turn them into these crazy, 80s-inspired upbeat things." The idea of a full-length was floated, but Cara turned them down. Because of how much meddling she'd already experienced, she presumed the record would be written for her. "That whole thing just wasn't my vibe." It's ballsy to walk away from your dreams, but Cara says the decision wasn't fuelled by self-belief. "It wasn't a case of 'I'm going to do it another way', I just really didn't think it was for me."

"Deep down, I knew that I was going to do music one day, but if I was ever going to do it, it wasn't going to be like that," she explains. "I knew I needed to be older as well  because I had so much unconscious shit that I needed to process in order to know what I wanted to say and who I was."

So for the next decade, Cara threw herself into other work. She collaborated with pretty much every fashion label going and appeared in everything from superhero blockbusters (Suicide Squad) and coming-of-age comedies (Paper Towns) to Taylor Swift's star-studded 'Bad Blood' music video (where she played the nunchuck-wielding Mother Chucker).

At the same time, Cara was constantly writing poetry and wouldn't leave for a work trip without a guitar or drum pad. During a Vogue shoot, Pharrell Williams heard her beatboxing while eating lunch (Maccies hamburger), and the talk turned to music. Before she knew it, he'd invited her to a late-night get-together and asked her to sing. "I had no belief in my voice. I'd sing along in the bathroom with the door locked or maybe perform an Adele cover when I was drunk or high, but nothing like that," she says. Never one to turn down a challenge, she started performing Ella Fitzgerald's jazz classic 'Summertime' before Pharrell interrupted. "No, sing it like you love singing," he encouraged. And she did. Afterwards, he invited her out to LA to work together.

At Conway Studios, with Beyoncé and Missy Elliott working nearby, Pharrell put down a track, gave Cara some direction about lyrical topics, and then left her to it. "It couldn't have been scarier." At the end of the first day, she had finished 'I Feel Everything', which was released as part of the soundtrack to the 2017 sci-fi blockbuster Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets. More "sick" songs followed, but the pair clashed when he wanted her to write something more upbeat and positive. "My artistry doesn't come from happiness," says Cara, who was still struggling with imposter syndrome. They called time on their collaboration. 

"He's been an incredible mentor, and I wouldn't be in the position that I'm in now without him," says Cara. Whenever she listened back to what they'd made together, she realised there was something there. "He really guided me to think that maybe I can do this. Ever since, it's been like an ant trying to dig into my brain, telling me, 'You can do it, if you believe'."

Then, after hitting "rock bottom's bottom" and getting sober, she finally felt ready to give music another try. "I thought I'd be 40 by the time I was ready, but getting sober fast-tracks that process of knowing yourself. There's really nothing quicker at getting to the depths of things."

The first song she wrote was 'The Mask', an absolutely devastating track that cycles through haunted dream pop and something more aggressive. "That one's probably the most reflective of my journey from not sober to sober," she explains, though recently she had a good cry with a fan who related the song's lyrics to their experience of living with autism. "You never know how people are going to connect with songs. The power of words in that way is just incredible."

'The Mask' unlocked something within Cara. "I don't know how to explain it other than my compass direction had changed completely. There's music in my head, there are words and emotions that come with such ferocity, what else am I going to do with it?" Next came the hammering industrial pain of 'I Forgot' ("I forgot that the world was real. I forgot that I'm human still," she sings) and the sleek atmospheric dance of 'Out Of My Head', but she was still figuring things out. 

"I never went into the studio going 'I want to write about this'. There wasn't a vision. I didn't know if it was going to be an album," she says. At one point, she considered making a single 80-minute art project, and when she met BJ Burton, who's previously worked with Charli xcx, Bon Iver and The Japanese House, everything clicked into place. "We have very different tastes, but he really pushed me. I appreciate that so much because I really wanted an album that sounded like nothing else I'd ever heard." The most common reaction she's got from people who've heard the record early is, "I did not expect that."

"I have a sound, I have a point of view, and I've found my voice, but I always wanted to make an album with different influences because mine are so varied and vast," says Cara, who took a lot of inspiration from the way Fiona Apple channels complicated, conflicting feelings through her transcendent indie folk. "They don't always make sense, and you definitely can't put them in a box. But the way she writes takes you on a journey. It helps you understand her mind."

'Not Normal' also features the haunted piano-led 'Overture', the wonky euphoria of 'Looking For You' and 'Not Normal', which Cara describes as a Broadway musical about rehab that you can also waltz to. "To me, that's what makes sense," she explains. "I wanted sad songs that are also filled with anger and joy. I wanted the album to feel like a complete emotional portrayal."

Many of the lyrics for 'Not Normal' began as conversations between Cara and a small group of collaborators, and the record charts a journey that begins at rock bottom. "You begin waking up with your face in a puddle, and you're trying to pick yourself back up after being completely disconnected from your feelings and your body. It's almost like a rebirth," she explains. "You're trying to learn how to function and feel again, while discovering who you are and unpicking old relationships." 'What Love Is Like' is about abusive relationships ("Whether that's with yourself or someone else") before 'Not Normal' ends with the sexy 'Tip Of My Tongue' and the blissed-out romance of 'Crazy, Baby'. "It's kind of everywhere. It's all of the things."

At one point, 'Crazy, Baby' was going to close 'Not Normal'. However, after sitting with it, Cara reworked a poem she had originally written when she was 26 into the album's closer, 'Slow Down'. It serves as a bookend to the bruised determination of 'Lights Up', which opens the record and started life as a poem she penned when she was 21. We haven't heard 'Slow Down' yet because it was only finished a couple of days before our chat. "I am a pop-loving cheeseball. I love the girl pop stars in such a major way, and 'Crazy, Baby' is a song I would never imagine writing, but I didn't want to end the album like that." 

As painful as the record is, it's also a beacon of hope. "I'm not jaded or damaged, but I feel like that a lot of the time. I have a lot of shame, and I do feel like there's something wrong with me. That's something I still have to work through," says Cara. "But without hope, without love, without belief, none of this would be possible. I definitely wouldn't be sitting here." So, there are flickers of optimism throughout the record. "Even in the moments of anger, confusion or feeling lost, there's hope because I'm actually talking about it. Usually, I would internalise everything, and it would just eat me from the inside out."

It's one of the reasons why, earlier this year, Cara Delevingne entered Rosalía's onstage confessional booth at London's O2 Arena and described herself as a lesbian for the first time in public. "I mean, I've always been very gay," she says today after previously labelling herself as queer and pansexual. "I think my internalised homophobia just didn't like the word lesbian. But luckily, there are so many amazing pop girlies, like Chappell Roan and Reneé Rapp, who are proudly gay and accepted for it. It makes me proud to be a woman in music."

"I am so happy that the word no longer feels derogatory and filled with shame for me. I wish I'd been brave enough to just fucking say shit when I was younger, though. As much as I am a rebel and don't love being put in a box, I do want to belong." That's why the album title is what it is. "I wish I was normal. I wish I wasn't someone who numbs themselves and abuses things because I don't love myself enough. I wish I'd always been comfortable with my sexuality and who I love. But there's a lot of shame in the world around substance use, addiction and being queer."

Before she'd released a single song from 'Not Normal', Cara announced an 11-date headline tour across Europe and the US. By the time she got onstage, just two songs were out in the world.

"I don't think there'll be anything harder than playing music and seeing a room full of people's faces being like, 'What the fuck is going on?'" she says. For early shows, she channelled what she'd learnt playing Sally Bowles in the celebrated West End production of Cabaret, and felt less theatrical and more relaxed as the tour went on. She did those gigs because part of her wanted to show people she was a real musician. "I'm taking it very seriously. This isn't a joke to me."

She's spent the past few years writing 'Not Normal' for herself, and in recent months, Cara has started thinking about other people hearing it. First came questions about what the album campaign would look like, before she settled on something more stripped-down than her usual high-fashion outfits. "I also knew I couldn't be blonde. For some reason, 'Not Normal' does not feel like an album made by a blonde person," she says. As for the fringe, that's a nod to the version of herself who first fell in love with music. "I wanted there to be a part of my younger self that comes into this with me." 

"I spent a lot of time trying to prove something to myself, because I am a perfectionist. I am a snob when it comes to my own music, and I can't release something unless it's good," says Cara. "I wasn't thinking about other people when I was making this album, because what's the point of that?" 

Today, three weeks from release day, Cara is a giddy mix of excited, nervous and scared about other people hearing it. "I don't really know what I'm scared of, though," she admits. "Performing songs to people who've never heard them is terrifying, but it's live and in the moment. You don't have time to sit and think. I'm not great at sitting with my thoughts because my mind tends to go negative. Luckily, I'm busy." There are already plans to get back in the studio, and she's spending the end of this year filming a couple of things. Finishing the album has made her certain that music wasn't an itch she needed to scratch. "It's always been a part of who I am. Now, I'm just more sure of that."

"I don't know where it's going to go," she admits, and there's not really a clear end goal in mind. "It's just to be open, to create, to be clear, to be honest and to love myself. We'll see where that takes me. There's just a lot of room to play now because I'm finally on my own side."

She'd love 'Not Normal' to inspire an emotional reaction in people, though. "When I listen to music, I'm able to feel things that I'm holding onto, so I hope people resonate with it, or dance to it, or even fuck to it. Even if they hate it, that's a feeling. I just feel incredibly grateful to have this platform," says Cara. And even if she didn't, she'd probably just drop the album on SoundCloud. "I know I'm starting from a higher level because of who I am, but there's still an upward climb ahead of me. And that's great. I want that. So much of my life has been about proving people wrong," she says before taking a brief pause. "At this point, though, that's not something I care about as much as I care about doing something that I love."

Cara Delevingne's album 'Not Normal' is out 25th September.