yes it works best when you're able to use prior year tax for the estimated tax payments rather than 90% of the current year, as everything from prior year is known and it doesn't matter what unexpected income you get or when.
But, IRS allows for uneven income and estimated tax payments instead of even quarterly payments, by allowing you adopt an annualized income method on Form 2210 where you can lay out your AGI vs. the estimated payments to reduce/eliminate the penalty. You would need to provide cumulative AGI, Long Term Cap Gains/Qualified Dividends thru 3/31, 5/31, 8/31 for this method.
Under Other Tax Situations / Underpayment Penalties, you can go through the interview process to see if it reduces/eliminates the penalty and then adopt this method.
