Here is the final, working code. It correctly handles the initial connection and the client closing the connection, or being killed.

# server

use Modern::Perl;
use EV;
use AnyEvent;
use IO::Socket::INET;
my $is_connected;
my $project = my $config = my $text = my $this_engine = {} ;
$config->{remote_control_port} = 57000;

start_remote();
EV::run();
sub start_remote {
    my $port = $config->{remote_control_port};
    say "Starting remote control listener on port $port";
    $project->{remote_control_socket} = IO::Socket::INET->new( 
        LocalAddr     => 'localhost',
        LocalPort     => $port, 
        Proto         => 'tcp',
        Type        => SOCK_STREAM,
        Listen        => 1,
        Reuse        => 1) || die $!;
    start_watcher();
}
sub start_watcher {
    $this_engine->{events}->{remote_control} = AE::io(
        $project->{remote_control_socket}, 0, \&process_remote_command
+ )
}
sub remove_watcher {
    undef $this_engine->{events}->{remote_control};
}
sub process_remote_command {
    if ( ! $is_connected++ ){
        say "making connection";
        $project->{remote_control_socket} =
            $project->{remote_control_socket}->accept();
        $this_engine->{events}->{remote_control} = AE::io(
            $project->{remote_control_socket}, 0, \&process_remote_com
+mand );
    }
    my $input;
    eval {     
        $project->{remote_control_socket}->recv($input, $project->{rem
+ote_control_socket}->sockopt(SO_RCVBUF));
    };
    $@ and say("caught error: $@"), reset_socket(), return;
    logpkg('debug',"Got remote control socketput: $input");
    eval {
        $project->{remote_control_socket}->send(process_command($input
+));
    };
    $@ and say("caught error: $@"), reset_socket(), return;
}
sub reset_socket { 
    undef $is_connected;
    undef $@;
    $project->{remote_control_socket}->shutdown(2);
    remove_watcher();
    start_remote();
}
sub logpkg { say join " ", @_ }
sub process_command { "processed: ". shift } 

# client script

use Modern::Perl;
use IO::Socket::INET;
my $tcp = IO::Socket::INET->new( PeerAddr => 'localhost', PeerPort => 
+'57000', Proto => 'tcp', Type => SOCK_STREAM) || die $!;
    my $cmd = 'eval $this_track->name';
    do_remote_cmd($cmd);
    do_remote_cmd("greetings");
    do_remote_cmd("earthlings");
    do_remote_cmd("take me....");
    $tcp->shutdown(2);

sub do_remote_cmd {
    my $cmd = shift;
    $tcp->send($cmd);
    $tcp->recv(my $result, 65536);
    say "command: $cmd, result: $result";
}
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