After her group Diddy – Dirty Money disbanded in 2012, Richard continued to develop her musical identity and worked with creative partner and manager Andrew "Druski" Scott, who co-wrote Goldenheart with her.

A post-breakup concept album, Richard's songwriting poses relationships and personal subjects as epic tales through magical, medieval imagery and allusions to high fantasy and science fiction tropes.

In 2011, Richard was promoting the album Last Train to Paris (2010) as a member of Sean Combs' musical project Diddy – Dirty Money and released a free mixtape, The Prelude to A Tell Tale Heart, which registered one million downloads within a month.

[6] Allmusic's Andy Kellman characterizes its music as "largely pop-oriented contemporary R&B",[7] while Jesse Cataldo from Slant Magazine finds it to be "aligned with an intensifying style of alternative R&B ... in which albums are intricately structured and thematic.

"[6] Marcus Holmlund of Interview observes an "atmospheric aesthetic" that blends "alternative listens like Björk and Imogen Heap with 80s pop (à la Phil Collins and Prince)".

Richard, who grew up listening to Collins, Prince, Genesis, Cyndi Lauper, and Peter Gabriel, cites the song "'86" as most exemplary of those influences on the album.

"[14] The maximalist production of the opening song "In the Hearts Tonight" begins with 45 seconds of both staccato and tremolo strings, solo flute, and a ringing harpsichord line that coalesce with various self-harmonising voices.

[12] The album's closing title track, a meditation on nostalgia built around Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune", is solely performed with electronically altered voice and piano.

[8] Steven Hyden observes several "hallmarks of '70s prog and '80s soft rock" other than the influence of Gabriel's "art-school deconstructions of classic '60s soul", including Goldenheart's Roxy Music-esque album cover.

[1] Her lyrics employ religious imagery, battle motifs,[11] and allusions to high fantasy and science fiction tropes, including heroic last stands, world-dominating empires, parted oceans, starflights, vampiric lovers, and military deployment, all used as metaphors for internal landscape and personal conflict.

[5] Jesse Cataldo from Slant Magazine observes "a kind of feverish mysticism" on the album, which he views is "concerned with magical imagery and the self-restorative properties of the human heart.

[2] Reviewing for The Guardian in January 2013, Alex Macpherson found Goldenheart "dazzling and imperious" because of how Richard's "array of sonic weapons matches her epic, elemental vision".

[11] Jason Gubbels of Spin praised her eclectic music and versatile singing, which he credited for "springing finely placed surprises on listeners lulled into reverie, navigating tricky spots just effortlessly enough to mask her mastery".

[28] Jonathan Bogart of The Atlantic wrote that, with her Tolkien-inspired lyrics, Richard "remains true to the oldest and most important standards of R&B, which, more than any other musical genre, charts the uncountable intricacies of the human heart.

"[14] Grantland critic Steven Hyden felt that the album blurs R&B conventions like Frank Ocean's Channel Orange (2012) and Janelle Monáe's The ArchAndroid (2010), and as "an ambitious, singular work", it demands repeated listens.

[7] Laurie Tuffrey from The Quietus said that Richard distinguishes herself from her R&B contemporaries with her exceptional creativity,[12] while Pitchfork critic Andrew Ryce called her aptitude for theatricality "unparalleled" and wrote that her slightly "hammy" but "earnest personality both endears and empowers her work".

[9] Goldenheart has all the trappings of the most appetizing critic bait currently on the market ... [It] might very well become the latest big-ideas record to influence the course of contemporary R&B, but Richard seems concerned only with the shape and sound of her own rapidly evolving music.

Slant Magazine's Jesse Cataldo wrote that, despite its interesting "musical palette and tenacious personality", Richard "falls back on the same tired tropes that have made many conventional R&B acts feel so exhaustingly familiar.