The single debuted and peaked at number six on the US Billboard Hot 100, giving Pop Smoke his first, DaBaby his fourth, and Lil Baby his fifth top-10 hit in the US.
[3] "For the Night" is a hip hop, trap, and soul song consisting of an acoustic guitar, folk flutes, heavily autotuned vocals, and processed moans from Lil Baby and DaBaby.
[12][13][14] Critics called "For the Night" one of the best songs of 2020,[4][15] such as the Los Angeles Times' August Brown who said it was a "convincingly dragged-out, haunting angle on his craft at the precipice of global stardom".
[18] While Wongo Okon of Uproxx labeled the track as sinister,[11] The Wall Street Journal's Mark Richardson considered it more welcoming than Pop Smoke's earlier songs.
[10] Other critics highlighted the song's vocals and instrumentation, Ashton Howard of Earmilk declaring the rappers delivered a "phenomenally charismatic appearance".
[15][9] Juan Gutierraz called it a "well-balanced rap tune" due to DaBaby's "baritone staccato flow" counterpointing the "higher auto-tuned voices" of Lil Baby and Pop Smoke.
[21] The Independent critic Roisin O'Connor also declared the song's autotuned vocals and folk flutes seemed outdated in comparison to Pop Smoke's gruff.
[8] "For the Night" was released on Pop Smoke's posthumous debut studio album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, as the third track on July 3, 2020.
[24] Following the release of Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, "For the Night" debuted and peaked at number six on the US Billboard Hot 100,[25] giving Pop Smoke his first, DaBaby his fourth, and Lil Baby his fifth top-10 hit in the US.
[30] The Recording Industry Association of America certified the single a octuple platinum certification, which denotes eight million units based on sales and track-equivalent on-demand streams.