In this paper, we study the one-dimensional cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLS) on the circle. In particular, we develop a normal form approach to study NLS in almost critical Fourier-Lebesgue spaces. By applying an infinite iteration of normal form reductions introduced by the first author with Z. Guo and S. Kwon (2013), we derive a normal form equation which is equivalent to the renormalized cubic NLS for regular solutions. For rough functions, the normal form equation behaves better than the renormalized cubic NLS, thus providing a further renormalization of the cubic NLS. We then prove that this normal form equation is unconditionally globally well-posed in the Fourier-Lebesgue spaces ℱLp($${\cal F}{L^p}(\mathbb{T})$$
ℱ
L
p
(
T
)
), 1 ≤ p < ∞. By inverting the transformation, we conclude global well-posedness of the renormalized cubic NLS in almost critical Fourier-Lebesgue spaces in a suitable sense. This approach also allows us to prove unconditional uniqueness of the (renormalized) cubic NLS in ℱLp($${\cal F}{L^p}(\mathbb{T})$$
ℱ
L
p
(
T
)
) for $$1 \leq p \leq {3 \over 2}$$
1
≤
p
≤
3
2
.