How did Macaque get his powers?
In episode 9 of season five, we clearly hear Xiangliu say "Who did you make a deal with?" Which means he CLEARLY recognized the powers. And it HAD to be someone from the chaos beyond.
Xiangliu clearly remembers Wukong, even though Wukong doesnt. So it's most likely the case that the cycle restarted and Xiangliu still remembers.
And for Macaque, we can clearly see his shadow staff when he was fighting the Jade Emperor with the Brotherhood. So he didnt get his powers AFTER Wukong killed him.
And when MK asked if Wukong has jumped into any light pillars, he looked at a mural with Wukong going into one. Wukong seemed surprised, so he most likely didnt remember it. So he could have done that in a previous cycle.
So Macaque got his powers from a previous cycle and they stuck with him to the current cycle. But the question still remains, which demon from the chaos beyond gave Macaque his powers and what were Macaque's previous powers? Besides shadows (or the color purple in this case), Macaque is usually featured with RED. And his powers turned orange-ish red after the events of s5 ep 10.
So it could be his past powers slowly coming back, that's why he's confused when they turn that way, he doesnt remember his past powers from the previous cycles.
