Auli’i Cravalho

Playing a homeless teen in “All Together Now” was taxing for several reasons, but the voice of “Moana” was happy to continue her run of strong female roles

A lot has changed for Auli’i Cravalho since her first film.

The actress was 14 when Disney tapped her to star in “Moana,” voicing the animated musical’s titular island heroine. She still lived with her mother on Oahu in Hawaii, where she was focused on choir, AP classes and a budding interest in microbiology.

Five years later, Cravalho’s new home base is now her Los Angeles apartment, where for the first time, she is living on her own — save for her year-old tuxedo cat, Rocco, who begrudgingly has roughly half a dozen bow ties in his wardrobe. (“He and I are really good friends now,’ she said. “But in the beginning, it was a lot of hissing.”)

Cravalho still wants to go to college, but school is on pause as her career flourishes: Her sophomore starring role, in the Netflix drama “All Together Now,” can be seen starting Friday. She plays Amber Appleton, a high school student balancing homelessness and a fraught family life with her dreams of becoming a singer and enrolling at Carnegie Mellon University.