Part of the time Los Angeles songwriting duo Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear were working on music for “Moana 2,” Bear was on tour with Beyonce.

With Bear playing keyboards in the mononymous superstar’s band and Barlow in L.A., it was the first time the two friends had written over Zoom video calls.

There was an advantage to the remote collaboration, though. Proximity to Beyonce’s powers.

During the tour, Barlow (a Birmingham, Alabama native) and Bear (from Rockford, Illinois) happened to be working on “Get Lost,” a song for “Moana 2″ character Matangi, voiced by Awhimai Fraser.

“Her being on tour with the biggest diva,” Barlow says, “when we had to write a diva show-stopping number definitely influenced us in a way, for sure.”

READ: The Alabama connection to a Disney blockbuster that’s already raked in $225M

“Moana 2″ has been the top film in the U.S. for three straight weeks since its Nov. 27 release. So far, Disney’s sequel to 2016 animated hit “Moana” has earned more than $717 million worldwide at the box office, according to rottentomatoes.com.

The film, a Hawaii culture-themed adventure comedy, features the voices of actors like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Nicole Scherzinger.

Barlow and Bear’s songs are at the heart of the success of “Moana 2,” which also boasts a film score by returning “Moana” duo Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foaʻi. At least eight of the songs in “Moana 2″ were cowritten by Barlow and Bear.

Barlow and Bear “Moana 2″ songs include “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?,” a rousing number sung by Johnson. “It’s not an easy song,” Bear says, “and he crushed it.” Barlow adds, “It was magical. He’s such a great guy and he’s a family guy — he brought his whole family into the [vocal] booth with him. And he was really prepared.”

Of working with Johnson, Bear says, “It’s always wild seeing someone that you’ve really only viewed on a screen and is so larger than life, standing in front of you and you’re giving him notes. But you just have get over the shock and start working.”

Another key “Moana 2″ tune, the longing “Beyond” — an “I Want” song in musical theatre speak — is one of four or so songs Barlow and Bear collaborated on with Foaʻi.

Barlow says, “There was a different song in its place for a very long time — actually, it was in the movie for like a couple years. Then we watched a screening, and we all decided it didn’t really belong anymore. So we went back to square one, and we reworked the idea of ‘Beyond’ to be in the place of the movie where that ‘I Want’ song lived.”

Reshaping a song to match the moment was exciting for Barlow and Bear. But that said, all their “Moana 2″ experience was like a “classroom,” Barlow says.

“A huge team of brilliant people who had worked on the first film,” Barlow says, “and who have worked in animation for longer than some of us have been alive. It was an honor to learn from them. And it was also an honor to be respected by them, because they made sure our voices were always heard.”

Bear says on such a mega project, it’s crucial to know when to make a stand and when not to.

“You are in a round table full of a bunch of different opinions,” Bear says, “and there are a lot of voices that hold weight in those rooms. And so, of course, collaboration is a push and a pull there. There are certain things that you can fight for. There are certain things that you have to kind of sit back and not die on that hill for.”

Barlow and Bear had major prior success. They won a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album for their 2021 collaboration “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical.”

Both women keep their Grammy statuettes on the pianos in their respective homes. With a smile during our video call, Barlow says that during a past Christmas party, she used her Grammy to drink a celebratory shot of vodka shot from.

“Hamilton” legend Lin-Manuel Miranda was one of the main songwriters for “Moana.” Miranda also contributed to the “Moana 2″ song “We Know the Way.”

Bear says, “Sequels are always hard. It’s impossible to recapture the magic of the first one, because it’s also something that people have been living with for almost 10 years. So we wanted to obviously pay homage to the world that he [Miranda] built and have callbacks [to the first “Moana” film].

“And also working with Opetaia, who was such a big part of the first soundtrack, and using him as an anchor, while also allowing new characters to sound different and have the voices of all of our characters expand and grow, was important for us.”

Music got into Barlow’s blood early. Her dad was a doctor by trade, but also wrote songs and played them around the house. Hearing his original songs when she was a child, “made me want to write my own.”

In seventh grade, Barlow began performing as part of the local Red Mountain Theatre conservatory program. “As a teenager,” Barlow says, “it helped me find who I am. And I know it’s still doing that for kids today.”

Bear can’t remember a time when music wasn’t the biggest thing in her life. A pivotal moment came when she attended a concert by famed film composer John Williams. “Oh my god, my brain exploded,” Bear recalls.

Musical theatre has its stereotypes. The jazz hands. The kick lines. Everyone involved being a little to a lot “extra.” But Bear feels those generalizations are unfair.

“It really is an incredibly genre-less genre,” Bear says. “It can be whatever you want it to be. There are rock musicals, folk musicals, there’s everything, and all it is is telling story through song. And there’s something really powerful about that.

Bear continues, “We’ve all sat through a bad musical here and there, but when it’s done right, it’s the most powerful art form in the world. Music really has a way to make people feel seen and break down a lot of walls.”

Barlow and Bear met about six-and-a-half years ago. They connected through a mutual friend who thought the two women would be musically simpatico.

Barlow says initially, “We just met as girlfriends. We watched ‘The Bachelorette,’ I made French macarons, and we bonded over being young women in the music industry. It’s hard to find friends out here in L.A. So when we met, we were like, ‘You get it. You understand.’ Then we wrote together, and that was like an instant click. We felt like we had found something special.”

Often with musical theatre, the lyricists are in one room and composers are in another room. But with Barlow and Bear – when Beyonce tours aren’t involved — it’s eye-to-eye. And sparks fly.

Bear says, “We start with one thing that feels good. It could be a lyric, it could be a piece of music, it could be a note, it could be literally whatever. And then we just kind of build off of that. It’s like putting the pieces of a puzzle together, rather than putting two pieces of bread together to make a sandwich.”

As songwriters, Barlow and Bear draw inspiration from musical films like “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid.”

Now with their “Moana 2″ songs, Barlow and Bear are bringing that wonder to the next generation. They’ve been to see the film in theaters both together and separately.

Bear fondly recalls a “Moana 2″ showing where “there was a little girl next to me who every five seconds she would be like, ‘Oh, god, oh god.’ Watching them watch it hits you in the feels.” As Barlow puts it, “It’s why we do it.”