Watching Brook’s introduction knowing his backstory makes me think he wasn’t just being cheerful, he had actually gone insane from 50 years of loneliness
Much like your allusion to The Nightmare Before Christmas, my mind always shorthands to "Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island" when it comes to thinking of concise descriptions fir this arc.
Nami's hair during the storm when she called out for the paddles looked exactly like her (adopted)mom's did back when she was a kid. Nice throwback that I missed when I saw this scene the first time back when it came out
Kind of a spoiler. But there there is a good reason why Luffy wanted Musician early on in the story. If you want to find out, react to 'One Piece Film: Red'.