Stella Donnelly on the painful friend breakup that inspired her new album: ‘I’m trying to protect them – but I’ve written this record’

Stella Donnelly: ‘I’ve always championed honesty. So it was hard to have a bit of a tough time and not be able to give very much.’ Photograph: Nick McKinlay

Stella Donnelly didn’t want to write songs about a friend who broke her heart. But any time the Welsh Australian singer-songwriter tried to channel anything else into her lyrics, the hurt was always there on the surface.

We have a language for coping with romantic heartbreak, learned from movies and songs – but there are fewer mirrors in art for coping with the end of platonic bonds. On her third album, Love and Fortune, Donnelly has captured the dull ache of being rejected by a friend who once knew her best of all. It might become the record ghosted friends turn to when they find a person they knew intimately for years no longer wants to hear from them.