In addition to involvement with music, Maia is a streamer on Twitch, has made a podcast, has released two graphic novels, and provided protagonist Alex Chen's singing voice in Life Is Strange: True Colors.

[15] Her early oeuvre was recorded with GarageBand in her parents' guest bedroom,[16][17][18] and percussion tracks were created with found objects such as hair straighteners.

[19] Her 2017 collaboration with lo-fi producer Peachy, "Falling for U", became an early signature song; it has since garnered more than three hundred million streams on Spotify.

[28][29] "Prom Dress", the lead single, found considerable usage on social media platform TikTok, where it has been used in over a hundred thousand videos.

[27] The album's release had been accompanied by 21 Days, a podcast in audio diary format by Spotify that concerned Maia's activities while working on the project in New York City.

In an interview given in the interregnum between the releases of the two EPs, Maia detailed an intention to make music that "gracefully said thank you and goodbye" to her past work.

[42] Maia was featured in Dork's Hype List of 2020, alongside artists including Girl in Red, Beabadoobee and Maisie Peters.

[43][44] In the March of the following year, she was announced as the singing voice for Alex Chen, the protagonist of the Square Enix game Life Is Strange: True Colors.

[49] A deluxe version followed in September, which includes the song Plastic Pony, which gained streams after it was featured in the film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken.

[56] Her music has been described as "warm folk-pop tunes with acoustic ornamentations",[23] "one part acoustic-pop a-la Kina Grannis, mixed with sharp lyricism and avant-garde, off-kilter melodics akin to Fiona Apple or PJ Harvey",[57] and artistry that "explore[s] themes such as the trials of love, being a burden to those close to you, and connecting with your family's heritage".

[18][17] Joshua Bote of Paste wrote that Maia "might be the songwriter a new generation needs", noting that she is "made for these times" and is "armed with a ukulele, a sardonic charm and social media savvy;" he went on to describe her as "really, really good at the internet".

[58] Grant Rindner of Nylon wrote: "With a commitment to covering topics she rarely hears addressed by other artists, and a keen understanding of how to bond with her audience, she's emerged as a charming and relatable singer-songwriter with a massive platform.

"[59] After attending Maia's performance at the Gramercy Theatre, Briana Younger of The New Yorker wrote, "She sang of routine high-school problems, such as crippling self-doubt and unrequited love, with an emotional sophistication that reminded us that there are some things we never outgrow.

"[60] Joe Coscarelli of New York Times compared Maia's bedroom pop style to that of Girl in Red, Clairo and Beabadoobee, as well as the folk-pop "simplicity" of Regina Spektor and The Moldy Peaches; he described her as a character "who overflows with earnestness and giggles", and her rise in popularity as the assemblage of "an independent, D.I.Y.

[64] Maia is a bisexual woman from a family of immigrants[17] and currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee , where she writes, records, and produces her own music from her home that she shares with her younger brother.