diff --git a/beets/metadata_plugins.py b/beets/metadata_plugins.py
index 0b8d81c95..56bf8124f 100644
--- a/beets/metadata_plugins.py
+++ b/beets/metadata_plugins.py
@@ -412,7 +412,7 @@ class SearchApiMetadataSourcePlugin(
         :return: Query string to be provided to the search API.
         """
 
-        components = [query_string, *(f'{k}:"{v}"' for k, v in filters.items())]
+        components = [query_string, *(f"{k}:'{v}'" for k, v in filters.items())]
         query = " ".join(filter(None, components))
 
         if self.config["search_query_ascii"].get():
diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index 092a1a5a0..ef7eb9ff8 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ Bug fixes:
   matching. :bug:`5189`
 - :doc:`plugins/discogs` Fixed inconsistency in stripping disambiguation from
   artists but not labels. :bug:`5366`
+- :doc:`plugins/spotify` Fixed an issue where candidate lookup would not find
+  matches due to query escaping (single vs double quotes).
 
 For packagers: