Last year, California-based singer Abi Carter won season 22 of “American Idol.”

On Thursday, she’ll be singing as well as playing piano and guitar for the first time in Maine.

During a tour stop in Pittsburgh, Carter talked about her album “Ghosts in the Backyard,” her post-“Idol” life and her “Idol” friend and roommate, Mainer Julia Gagnon. Gagnon will open the show at Portland House of Music.

I watched “American Idol” for the first time last year because, like so many others, I was spellbound by Gagnon’s audition performance of Aretha Franklin’s “Ain’t No Way.”

As Gagnon kept advancing over several weeks, “Idol” became must-see TV.

Gagnon was in the top seven before she was eliminated. A crushing blow to her fans, but the one other contestant that kept me glued to the rest of the season was Carter. Carter’s audition, singing Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” was otherwordly.

In the end, Carter beat the other semifinalist, Will Moseley, and reprised the Eilish song, fighting back tears. Gagnon was the first person to run on stage and embrace Carter as she finished singing.

Carter said her primary takeaway from “American Idol” is learning how hard the music business is, and how much of it doesn’t happen on stage. “Music is only 5% of you actually getting to sing and perform,” she said.

The rest is marketing, writing and communicating. “The part that I love is really such a small part of it,” she said.

But she said it’s all worth it. “That 5% makes up for the 95%, and there’s really nothing that I feel more fulfilled by in the world.”

After the typical “Idol” victory lap of national media appearances on shows like “Live with Kelly and Mark” and “Good Morning America,” Carter got to work on making an album. She released “Ghosts in the Backyard” in November 2024.

The single “Peppermint Sky,” has more than 650,000 Spotify streams. All 10 tracks are gorgeous, well-crafted songs. Opening tune “The Lamppost” starts delicately, then ramps up its momentum as Carter’s vocals skyrocket.

Another choice track is “Comfortably Numb.” Carter, 23, said she had no knowledge of the similarly named Pink Floyd song when she wrote it.

She was in the midst of a songwriting session, writing about an unfulfilled relationship that lacks true love and passion. “You’re compatible in a very white picket fence kind of way. It just feels comfortably numb,” said Carter.

Carter was thrilled with her pairing of “comfortably” with “numb.” “I thought that I was a freaking genius. I was ridiculous. I thought that I had coined it.”

Then she remembered to check to see if anyone had used the term before. It was then Carter discovered that not only was there another song with the same name, it was one of the most recognized classic rock songs of all time. Carter was mortified, but maintains a sense of humor about it.

The title is the only thing the two songs have in common. Carter’s is a fervent declaration of knowing what she needs to do — and doesn’t involve a drug trip that fueled Pink Floyd’s masterpiece track (although the very next song on Carter’s album is called “Some People Need Drugs”).

Since the album release, Carter has also released two new singles. One is called “2009 barbie dreamhouse.”

Carter’s favorite possession growing up was the 2009 edition of a Barbie Dreamhouse. “It was the vision of everything that I had for the future and what I wanted my life to feel like. I wanted my future to feel as loving and warm as that Barbie Dreamhouse made me feel,” she said.

But even toy houses can be torn down.

“I didn’t quite grow up in an environment that was completely loving and supportive and safe. One day, the thing that was making my home unsafe and unloving came home and destroyed my Barbie Dreamhouse.

“I felt like my vision for what I wanted for the future was destroyed.”

Redemption came earlier this year when Carter’s older sister had a baby. During a visit, Carter realized her niece would never have to grow up the way she and her sister did. “It was a beautiful thing,” she said.

Still cradling the newborn, Carter said she sat at the piano and started writing “2009 Barbie Dreamhouse.”

The song contains these lines:

I wanna build a house right up from the ground
Where heartfelt apologies are loud
And unconditional love pours out
Of all the cabinets and hallways

Since “Idol,” Carter has visited Maine once to go skiing with Gagnon, and is excited to return.

The two became friends early on, when they met during the Hollywood Week episode of “Idol.”

They formed an alliance to help deal with negative comments online.

“We were so proud of our initial auditions that whenever we saw the hate comments around it, it was just hilarious to us because we felt really secure in how we felt we had performed, and it was really easy to just laugh off those comments,” said Carter.

On Instagram, Carter and Gagnon shared silly clips of themselves reading some of the hateful comments. “We laugh on camera so that we don’t cry off camera,” Carter described it in one of the posts.

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Carter’s “No Amount of Dark” tour ends with the Portland show.

Carter said she has loved the experience. “Going to rooms and playing to people is something that I’ve dreamed of doing ever since I was a kid, especially people who are paying to be there and they’re hooked and they’re engaged.”

She said she often sees fans singing along. “That’s a feeling that I don’t think you ever really get tired of. It’s almost like an addiction.”

Abi Carter with Julia Gagnon

7 p.m. Thursday. Portland House of Music, 25 Temple St., Portland, $34.73, 21-plus. portlandhouseofmusic.com.