  We demonstrate that enhanced early galaxy formation can generically arise in
axion-like particle (ALP) dark matter (DM) theories with the kinetic
misalignment mechanism, potentially addressing the excess recently observed by
the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), while being consistent with existing
constraints. We identify viable parameter regions with the ALP mass in the
range of $10^{-22}~{\rm eV}<m_a<10^{-19}~\rm eV$. In addition, we show that the
ALP parameter regions of interest can lead to intriguing complementary
signatures in the small-scale structure of DM halos and existing experimental
searches for ALPs.
