Columbia Records issued the album in the summer of 1977, taking the songs from various locations on Nyro's 1976 tour in support of her most recent studio album, Smile. Although the album had no strict producer, Nyro is credited as the "musical director." Dale Ashby was engineer and mixer, assisted by Don Pulse and Ken Robertson.
The album documents Nyro's first full-band tour, with her playing guitar, piano, and other keyboards, backed by a group of musicians including John Tropea on guitar and Richard Davis on bass. The atmosphere of the album is laidback, smooth, and jazz-inspired, musically similar to the explorations on Smile. Nyro re-arranged many songs to fit her new band's sound, such as slowing down "Sweet Blindness" or making "And When I Die" funkier.
The album was originally intended to be a double-LP set consisting of 16 songs, and this version was sent to some outlets as a promotional copy and as a Japanese import. Instead, Columbia released a single-LP set of 10 songs. Reissue imprint Iconoclassic Records released a remastered version of Season of Lights, including all sixteen songs plus a bonus solo version of "Timer," on CD in August 2008.
The album peaked at #137 on the Billboard 200 chart, then known as the Pop Albums chart. It was Nyro's penultimate US chart entry after a run of seven successive charting albums stretching back to 1968's Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, before her final chart entry in 1984.
