Poogona [he/him]

There are probably lots of historical records that were written by people operating on too many layers of irony to truly interpret accurately

There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that early humans and neanderthals coexisted and even cohabitated and it makes me happy to imagine it being not just circumstantial but enthusiastic cohabitation (not even horny)

Like the period of coexistence lasted for estimates of thousands of years. You’re gonna tell me there were no cross-species duos getting up to mischief? Not one puny human kid who teamed up with the big neanderthal kid because they were both getting bullied? No Last Kingdom scenarios in which a child who was raised by the other group feels torn between these identities? Please

My cargo shorts are the garb of an artist, disheveled and prophetic

The books set in Bas-Lag by China Meiville fit this and also happen to have based politics (and cactus people)

The Gormenghast books spend a lot of time satirizing fantasy royalty with a ghoulish atmosphere of “decaying hateful weirdos with well-rehearsed manners” over it, and passing attention to the real but impoverished life outside the castle

Malazan has some of what you are after but it deconstructs like every trope throughout its enormous wordcount so I imagine it’s too broad

(My book has it too but it’s more of a backdrop, likely too distant for what you want)

The entire album Symbol by Susumu Yokota might hit the right nerve, though it’s heavier on the dreamlike side and doesn’t have lyrics. I use it for driving, writing, anything that needs a kind of hypnotized but functional state of mind.