Sorry i forgot to come back and post my setup once i got it working. I went with the ST MQTT-Bridge smart app and then built a DTH to work with the queue. The NodeMCUs are subscribed to a single topic (i have two in the kitchen under the cabinets, and had no need to control them independently), and the on/off is controlled with a Virtual Switch in ST (called “Kitchen Cabinets”). The DTH i wrote is specifically designed to work with some Arduino code i adapted from the Bruh implementation.
So… most of this is bastardized from other people and tweaked to work in ST, but in the end it does work with ST rules, WebCore, and Alexa - although Alexa can not start or stop any of the animations, that has to be done through webcore or directly in the ST app.
Arduino Code: https://github.com/Deadbeat/Deadbeat_SmartThings/tree/master/NodeMCU/ESP_MQTT_Digital_LEDs_w_JSON
MQTT-Bridge: https://github.com/stjohnjohnson/smartthings-mqtt-bridge
I recommend going with Mosquitto for your MQTT backend - I used the Docker image to make it easier to set up