Following on from “clementine,” Halsey released “Finally // beautiful stranger” alongside “SUGA’s Interlude” as the fourth installment of Manic.

The track narrates her first meeting with future boyfriend and collaborator YUNGBLUD (the pair had broken up by the time the song was released). Whilst promoting their single “11 Minutes” in February 2019, the pair talked about the day they first met, with Halsey telling 97.1 AMP Radio:

I hit him up and was like ‘Do you wanna go have some drinks?’ […] We met up at a bar, total stranger, I’ve never met him before.

When previewing the track for fans at a private event in London, Halsey introduced the song with:

What comes next is the first love song that I’ve ever written.

She went on to tell Zane Lowe in January 2020:

I was dating Dom (YUNGBLUD)… I was really happy! Was really happy with my life. I was thinking about the night that he and I met […] I really just wrote it for him.