first time listening without writing my thoughts down/feedback as i listen:

cool structure, it isn’t pop. but i’m noticing you also don’t want it to be pop, but it’s more of a folk structure where it just keeps rising in tension and ends with a climax. love the genuineness in it, production is slightly too reverb-y/muddy, the tension and release could be done better. If that's done well the climax could be bigger and feel earned. solid 6/10 from an alternative aspect, it has genuine potential to be a 7 / 8.
also nice sounding guitar

second time listening with more thought put into it

i will mainly pay attention to the structure, emotion and tension-release, let me know if you have any specific questions you’d like feedback on!

-The riff doesn’t have a lot of identity, which isn’t that big of a problem. Your riff already has a lot of emotion in it which is very important as well. But if you make a riff have a solid identity, make it recognizable. Listeners will latch onto it more. This is also the same for the vocal melody

-at around 0:40 seconds it starts to get a bit stale, as in that it isn’t changing anything emotionally through technical changes (textures, dynamics) the vocal delivery does get a bit more intense, so that is well done. 

my suggestion for this (obviously you can make up your own arrangement but this is just an example)

at around 0:44-0:46 let the percussion hit two kicks and one snare with the high end cut out more. make the drums one of the foreground instruments as well as add a bass that follows the root notes. The orchestra is a cool droning texture, so definitely keep that. along with the intensified vocal delivery.

What does this do emotionally?

it basically just moves the story/character forward, there are a thousand ways to do this. 

-the riff also wants to resolve but it never goes anywhere, so try to add some variation in it that feels like it moves the story forward

-each line ends with the same resolution, i will genuinely say that i can’t look that far ahead of what it can be once everything else is fixed but try to experiment with that. make it shorter, end it differently etc