Conceived as a soundtrack for an imaginary film based on a narrative written by Aoba, the concept album follows the story of a young girl who is sent away by her family to the titular fictional island of Adan.

To further support the album in global markets, Aoba embarked on her first international tour, performing in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, and North America between August and October 2022.

After the release of her debut album Kamisori Otome (剃刀乙女) in 2010, Ichiko Aoba had built an audience in her native Japan, but her work remained obscure abroad.

[3] On 10 January 2020, Aoba announced the establishment of her record label, Hermine, alongside the release of two songs titled "Amuletum" (守り哥, Mamori Uta, lit.

[4] Aoba first conceptualized Windswept Adan as a story while on a trip to the islands of Okinawa, Zamami, and Kudaka with photographer Kodai Kobayashi in January 2020.

[5] Aoba stated that the story for the album came to her in an epiphany she had at an izakaya in Naha; after noticing the translucency of a sea grape, she wrote the sentence "there were no words on the island" in her notebook, and soon began outlining a plot.

[12] Aoba depicts the imaginary Adan as flourishing with diverse plant and animal life (such as Risso's dolphins, bougainvillea, and Easter lilies) and inhabited by creatures of an unspecified species that communicate using seashells in place of a spoken language.

[14] After falling asleep under a tree and awakening to a group of creatures rising into the air, the girl also dies and is reincarnated as a number of different life forms.

[23] Umebayashi sought to reflect the mythological themes and the setting of Aoba's narrative in the sound of the album, as well as create an intentionally vague impression of the music's cultural origin.

[18] On the song "Easter Lily", he plays the celesta, an instrument he believed suited Aoba's vocals and the atmosphere of the story; a prepared piano with a felt covering was featured in the recording of "Parfum d'étoiles" for the same reason.

[29] Some reviewers have stated that Windswept Adan represents a stylistic departure from the minimalist instrumentation featured on Aoba's earlier projects, such as Qp.

[32] Critics have made comparisons between Windswept Adan and the works of artists across various musical genres, ranging from art pop to contemporary classical.

[33] David Honigmann of the Financial Times deemed it a successor to Akiko Yano's 1982 album Ai Ga Nakucha Ne (愛がなくちゃね, You've Got to Have Love, You Know) and likened the songs "Horo" and "Ohayashi" to the works of Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Steve Reich, respectively.

[34] The Observer's Emily Mackay noted similarities to the music of Nick Drake, Joanna Newsom, and Isobel Campbell's The Gentle Waves project.

[35] Brendan Mattox of Bandcamp Daily compared the album's arrangements to Mark Mothersbaugh's scores for the films of Wes Anderson and the works of composer Jherek Bischoff.

[37] The opening song "Prologue" features an organ, choral vocals, wind chimes, and samples from a field recording of waves crashing taken by Aoba on Honohoshi Beach in Amami Ōshima.

[42] Honigmann compared it to the orientalist arrangements of Maurice Ravel, while Pitchfork's Shy Thompson described its composition as consisting of softer individual parts that coalesce into "a tumultuous storm.

[55] "Ohayashi" is characterized by abrupt shifts and gamelan-style percussion performed by Manami Kakudo and employs polyrhythmic techniques—the song's guitar riff is written in quintuple meter.

'Birth Festival of Adan Island') begins with Aoba singing over a lightly-strummed guitar and gradually builds into an orchestral piece with cello and flute before fading into the sound of waves on the shore.

[22] Loud and Quiet's Charlotte Marston described the song as "long, still beats filling in the gaps between creamy flecks of guitar and velveteen vocals.

Aoba played subsequent shows in cities across the United Kingdom and continental Europe, including Glasgow, London, Copenhagen, Munich, and Berlin.

For Sputnikmusic, JohnnyoftheWell applauded the production on Windswept Adan as cohesive and polished, and remarked that the album offers a fresh and unique listening experience despite differing sonically from Aoba's earlier releases.

[78] In a review for Pitchfork, Shy Thompson wrote that on the album, Aoba had embraced a wide range of sounds while retaining the sentimental and imaginative qualities that had defined her previous works.

[48] Loud and Quiet's Charlotte Marston welcomed the album's change of pace, commenting that its diverse instrumentation gave it more complexity than the rest of Aoba's discography and highlighted the first three tracks, "Prologue", "Pilgrimage", and "Porcelain", as indicative of a transition in her musical style.

[58] In Uncut, Stephen Dalton appraised it as exceptionally well-crafted and wrote that its blend of nostalgic influences with modern ambient sounds was executed smoothly.

[41] The Guardian writer John Lewis said that on Windswept Adan, Aoba was able to emulate the style of other artists while remaining distinct in her creative approach.