Harry Styles’ Love On Tour, the grand live event encompassing his 2019 sophomore effort Fine Line and 2022 follow-up Harry’s House, drew to a close on Saturday, July 22 in Reggio Emilia, Italy. It began nearly two years ago, on September 4, 2021, and gathered legions of fans around the world to celebrate the work of an artist who has come into his own as a pioneering pop figure -- and also to celebrate togetherness itself, which has been in short supply since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But the singer wasn’t going to end the era without revealing one final ace up his sleeve: the music video for “Daylight,” a dreamy deep cut from Harry’s House. The July 19 drop marked the fifth video for the album, following “As It Was,” “Late Night Talking,” “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” and “Satellite.” As is to be expected from Styles, these four tracks embrace a wide range of genres and influences, from ‘80s synth-pop to ’70s hard rock to disco. “Daylight,” by contrast, feels like it owes the most to its contemporary landscape, with a 12/8-time shuffle and a playful vocal rhythm that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a track from Styles’ former group One Direction.

The Tanu Muino-directed video does align with its four predecessors, especially “Sushi Restaurant” and “Satellite,” in its originality, straying from the imagery that a listener who knew the lyrics might anticipate. (Styles has a history of making videos whose visual content and lyrical content are entirely separate: see “Kiwi” from 2017’s eponymous debut LP.) We descend a seemingly endless ladder into a traveling circus populated by Styles and a cast of knife-throwing, juggling, clowning co-stars. There’s also a parrot -- although Styles, not to be outdone, sails out of a cannon resplendent in feathers on the first post-chorus. Other shots find him running through a hall of funhouse mirrors, walking a tightrope, and riding both a penny-farthing and a horse.

His wardrobe is as fanciful as ever, even aside from the bird, whose bright-yellow wings appear to defy the line “If I was a bluebird / I would fly to you.” We see him first in a dark ensemble bedecked with oversized cream-colored ribbons. Later, he strips the avian getup down to a yellow leotard -- for aerodynamic purposes, we presume, as a circus demands speed and agility. The last costume to be introduced is a skeleton suit, which discerning viewers might compare to the one made famous by John Entwistle of The Who at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. (Elsewhere, the target leaning against a circus trailer resembles the RAF roundel that became The Who’s logo: but perhaps this reviewer, a big fan of both acts, is a bit overexcited.) Of course, unlike in some of his prior videos, here he is only one of many characters as outlandishly dressed as they are talented.