After four years out of the spotlight, Adele came back with more than a bang late last year – she had a whole new album, a new and more sophisticated look and the promise of a 2016 tour.

The singer appears on the cover of the March issue of US Vogue, and it's clear just how much she's grown up since the days of Hometown Glory and Rolling In The Deep.

"I think I had to take the right amount of time off to let people miss me," she says of her  extended hiatus.

Now a mum to three-year-old Angelo with her long-time boyfriend Simon Konecki, Adele says her whole perspective on life has changed.

"I can’t have any other junk in my head to worry about as well," she says, speaking about how parenthood has altered her outlook.

Angelo "makes me very proud of myself," she adds. "When I became a parent, I felt like I was truly living. I had a purpose, where before I didn’t."

After launching her career in her late teens with 19, Adele's had eight years as a high-profile celeb, and she says she's finally getting comfortable in her own skin.

"Actually I like myself more than ever. I really like how I look, I like who I am, I like everyone that I surround myself with.

"Obviously I have insecurities," she says – mentioning her "bum chin," her "intense" forehead, and her "potato" fingers – "but they don't hold me back."

Despite wearing a stunning array of Edrem, Burberry, Alexander McQueen and Salvatore Ferragamo pieces for the Vogue shoot, Adele says she's usually found in far less glamorous outfits.

"I don’t go out like this. I look like a bedraggled mother; I look like anyone else," she admits.

"When I’m with my kid I’m in leggings and a jumper and a pair of Converse because the grubby little hands are going to mark anything nice."

If there's one thing we can't imagine Adele as, it's "bedraggled"…