  We investigate the interplay between early universe cosmology and dark matter
direct detection, considering axion models with naturally suppressed couplings
to photons. In the context of the cosmological relaxation of the electroweak
scale, we focus on a scenario of \emph{Relaxion Dark Matter}, in which the
relaxion field constitutes all the observed dark matter relic density and its
allowed mass range is fixed to a few $\mathrm{keV}$ by construction. In
particular, we show that a relaxion particle with mass $m_\phi= 3.0
\,\mathrm{keV}$ which couples to electrons with $g_{\phi, e}= 6.8 \times
10^{-14}$ is consistent with the XENON1T excess, while accounting for the
observed dark matter and satisfying astro/cosmo probes. This scenario uses the
electroweak scale as the link connecting the relaxion production at early times
with the dark matter absorption rate in direct detection.
