Joshua Alston From the beginning, Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi has approached his career as an artist who would sooner toil in obscurity than be renowned for just one thing. Just two years after dropping “A Kid Named Cudi,” the mixtape that launched him into the spotlight, he was cast in “How to Make It in America,” a short-lived HBO-originals deep cut. In the decade since that show ended in 2011, he’s earned a reputation for bouncing willy-nilly between genres, mediums, and disciplines, and the choices that once seemed fickle now seem confidently eclectic. Never has Mescudi looked more like a polymath than with the debut of “Entergalactic,” an animated Netflix special timed to the release of his new studio album (also dropping on Sept. 30), which bears the same title. “Entergalactic” was initially announced in 2019 as a series to be created by Mescudi and Kenya Barris, but has since been whittled down to a 90-minute special (which Netflix is calling an “event”). In its final form, the special feels like it’s being torn in several artistic directions at once, not unlike Mescudi himself. The length and formal relationship with the album suggest a Beyoncé-style visual companion piece, heavy on style and symbolism but without a narrative throughline. (Halsey’s “If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power” is a solid non-Bey example.)