Really dumb question about parenting and empties for animation purposes

I have the head parented to the small-cube empty. The body (big circle) and the small-cube empty are parented to the big-cube. So far this does what I want. If I want to turn the “head” I can just rotate the small-cube empty. If I want to rotate/lean the body AND head I can do it with the big-cube empty, everything stays aligned, perfect. Now comes the part where I’m stuck, I want to be able to rotate the body like a ball when it is “moving” . For example I want to be able to lean the body and have the head follow but also be able to rotate the body and not affect the head. Lol even typing this makes my head hurt. I know this shouldn’t be so hard to grasp, but here I am!

This is a great example of the movement im looking for:

Select both objects, snap cursor to selection (median pivot point), add an empty. Parent both head and body to empty. Now, to rotate all objects, rotate the empty; to rotate just the head, rotate the head; to rotate just the body, rotate the body.

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