Hello Nakkazuka!
1) Yes, but you wouldn't use the light penetration feature, but rather draw it using normal maps. This way you can customize how many pixels the light will pass through and stuff like that. You need to change the light shader to Phong or BRDF too, to support normal maps. See: Creating Assets
2) Yes, there is support for Ambient Occlusion, through materials (sprites) or AO pass in general (cystal_pass_submit()).