During the livestream, Martinez announced that the release day of "Cry Baby" would be in August. The second single, "Soap", was confirmed in late June and it was announced soon before it was to be released on July 10. It leaked a day earlier. The one-shot music video came out the same day. On July 16, the album art and release date were leaked on Amazon, although the release date was false. On July 17, the album art was officially revealed and merchandise bundles were available to pre-order on Martinez's website, with the digital pre-order on July 24. Before the 24th, the track list of the album was leaked, although the websites that leaked it replaced "Tag, You're It" with "Jump Rope" and "Play Date" with "Half Hearted". The track list was officially revealed on the 24th with the pre-order. Starting on July 27, Melanie released a snippet of each song (apart from the ones on the deluxe edition) on her Instagram page. On July 28, Melanie released the snippet for "Sippy Cup" and announced that it would be released on July 31. On July 30, Spin premiered the video and "Sippy Cup" was released the day after. The album was released on August 14. The CD was packaged as a storybook, with jewel case CDs available later. Both a picture disk and a standard black vinyl were released in the future. Cassettes were then released, advertised as being in yellow, blue, and pink. There is also a less common green cassette. All physical copies of the album are the standard explicit, with the deluxe and clean being digital exclusives. The album is about a character, named Cry Baby, a fantasy version of Martinez when she was a child, and a representation of her vulnerable and messed up side. Martinez described Cry Baby as "a child who experiences adult things". She claims that many of the things that have happened to Cry Baby are similar to the things that have happened in her own life, except the part where Cry Baby gets kidnapped and kills her kidnapper. Each song on the tracklist has a childhood-related title and contains childhood-related metaphors while the deeper messages being crossed to the listener carry more adult themes and problems. For example, the song "Cry Baby" refers to someone who is teased for openly displaying their emotions (as opposed to an actual baby), and the song "Training Wheels" is actually about taking a relationship to the next level. The story book available in the pre-order bundle features rhymes and illustrations based on the album, written by Martinez herself.