At the opening of a Billie Eilish concert, a huge light box rises in the arena. “Spoiler alert! I’m in the cube, but you can’t see me,” she said. “I can literally see everyone so well from this box, but they have no idea I can see them. It feels like I’m wearing an invisibility cloak.”

“That’s a luxury you don’t usually have,” I said.

“That’s right!” she laughed. “But it also makes me feel a little like it’s not real?”

Her entire career was kind of unreal. Eilish, who turns 23 this month, has more than 100 million followers on Spotify, a passionate fan base that packed the United Center in Chicago.

A few hours before the show began, Eilish scurried around backstage, introducing us to her backup singers… her band… and leading us into a room full of stress-relieving rescue dogs. “Welcome to the puppy room!” she said. A couple has already been adopted.

She’s filled her crew with friends (even the furry ones) because this tour is different. Since Eilish made her breakthrough at the age of 14, her older brother Finneas has been her producer, songwriting partner and backing band. For the first time she is on tour without him. “I’ve never done a show without my brother in my life,” she said. “I mean, I hardly ever performed and sang without my brother.”

But they agreed it was time for them to go out on their own. Finneas told us: “I was integral to the show in an irreplaceable way for several years. And I always tried to make myself replaceable.”

Her mother, Maggie Baird, came to the show in Chicago. But Eilish’s parents also no longer go on tour with her. “It actually feels strange, yes,” Baird said. “But it also feels okay. And there are also a lot of jobs that I used to do that I’m glad I don’t have to do anymore!”

“Honestly, she won’t admit it, but I think it was really nice for her that I was gone,” Billie laughed. “And then she can come to me and it’s not just her whole life. I mean, I’ve been her whole life for about 23 years now.”

“But a pretty good life,” I said.

“Yes very! But yes…”

Earlier this year, Eilish won her second Oscar for the “Barbie”-themed “What Was I Made For.” She already has nine Grammys and now has another seven nominations. Her nominations include Record of the Year and Song of the Year for a song (“Birds of a Feather”) that she almost didn’t include on her album.

Billie and Finneas had problems with the song. “We wrote about the first half and it was super good,” she said. “And then we thought about it for months.”

I asked, “When you sing it, do you hear everything you went through to create it?”

“Sometimes,” she replied. “Sometimes when I listen to it, I hear certain parts that make me think, ‘Oh, that was such a nightmare!’ That was so punishing!’”

Watch Billie Eilish perform “Birds of a Feather”:

Eilish admits that until recently she didn’t see herself as much of a songwriter. That has changed. “I wrote a lot more on this album than I ever have before,” she said. “But this is what I want to say: I’ve been writing music since I was 11. But because I wasn’t as fast or as good at it as my brother, I kind of thought, “Oh, I’m not.” songwriter.’”

But when they set out to write Billie’s third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, Finneas felt uninspired.

“We went into the studio to write and I said, ‘Can we play pickleball?'” he said. “I think I was just a little tired then.”

Billie said they were in “different places” and she felt alone. In the past, Finneas helped elicit a text from his sister. This time she had to coax the words out of herself. “And then when I was just given that space, I came up with the idea,” she said.

During the final chorus of “Birds of a Feather,” Eilish reached for a note she wasn’t sure she could hit. She gained her vocal prowess after she started taking singing lessons.

I asked, “Have you found a part of yourself that you didn’t even know was there?”

“Yes! Oh yes. I mean, my voice!” she laughed. “I can’t express how gratifying, satisfying and fulfilling it was to learn these things about my own voice – that is in my body – which I didn’t even know I was capable of. … It’s so liberating.”

Listen to Billie Eilish’s isolated vocal track for “Birds of a Feather”:

From what we think we know about Billie Eilish, the singer is just starting to get to know herself.

I asked, “What interests me is that you’re now talking about two things: first, you discovered a part of your voice that you didn’t even know was there; and you’ve discovered that you’re a better songwriter than you ever thought. Where does that come from? The leave you?”

“Good question,” Eilish said. “We’ll see. I don’t know!”

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Watch the second part of Anthony Mason’s discussion with Billie Eilish on “CBS Mornings” on Tuesday, December 10.

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You can stream the Billie Eilish album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” by clicking on the embed below (free Spotify registration required to hear tracks in full):

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Produced by Jon Carras and Rebecca Castagna. Editor: Lauren Barnello.