at the Disco released on June 18, 2018 as the second promotional single from their sixth studio album, Pray for the Wicked, through Fueled by Ramen and DCD2 Records.
[3] In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, Brendon Urie explained that the song almost didn't make the album due to timing.
[4] Citing the last-minute nature of its completion, co-producer Alex Kresovich stated that, “I didn’t get the parts I needed to work on until 2:30 a.m. With it due in just a few hours, I was really sweating bullets and just trying to stay awake.
We worked until 4:30 a.m. and got everything done and turned in for mixing just in time.”[5] The lyrical concepts for the song came together during a writing session when Urie got "blitzed out of his mind" and was "verbal vomit(ing)" about "Carl Sagan, the multiverse, and inter-dimensional travel."
[6][7][8] In numerous interviews, Brendon Urie cited "King of the Clouds" as his favorite song on Pray for the Wicked and the one he is "most excited to perform live.