We prove that for any possibly-punctured surface with non-empty boundary $\mathbfΣ=(Σ, \mathbb{M}, \mathbb{P})$, and any tagged triangulation $T$ of $\mathbfΣ$ in the sense of Fomin--Shapiro--Thurston, the coefficient-free bangle functions of Musiker--Schiffler--Williams coincide with the coefficient-free generic Caldero--Chapoton functions arising from the Jacobian algebra of the quiver with potential $(Q(T), W(T))$ associated to $T$ by Cerulli Irelli and the second author. When the set of boundary marked points $\mathbb{M}$ has at least two elements, Schröer and the first two authors have shown, relying heavily on results of Mills, Muller and Qin, that the generic coefficient-free Caldero-Chapoton functions form a basis of the coefficient-free (upper) cluster algebra $\mathcal{A}(\mathbfΣ)=\mathcal{U}(\mathbfΣ)$. So, the set of bangle functions proposed by Musiker--Schiffler--Williams over ten years ago is indeed a basis.