I was able to get past this error by downloading a more recent copy of micronucleus from here
https://github.com/micronucleus/micronucleus/releasesand replacing the micronucleus binary that the ArduinoIDE was using with the new micronucleus binary.
Mine was in ~/home/johnpaul/.arduino15/packages/TinyCircuits/tools/micronucleus/2.0a4/
It is 2.0a4 because that's what the tinycircuits JSON from the instructions requests.
After this, when I uploaded the sample code from the TinyCircuits site, the text display and saber modes broke.
Rainbow mode and flashlight mode still worked.
I narrowed the problem to the board not getting good accelerometer data. It seemed to think it was constantly getting a double tap and also wasn't reacting to x motion changes for text.
I physically unplugged the battery, then pushed the reset button a few times. When I plugged the battery back in, it properly works with the accelerometer again and all example modes work.