Hello Matt,
Unfortunately there’s no real way easily implement this. The HTML markup to accomplish that effect is sort of complicated. I haven’t set this up in a way where you can just use it anywhere.
One thing you might consider where you can get this effect outside of featured images of post grids, is to insert a standard WordPress gallery; that’s really the only other way to get this effect. This is what I mean by standard gallery — https://vimeo.com/16686184
Additionally, if you link an image manually to a lightbox (like in this video), there will be a “fade” effect on hover, but it’s not going to be exactly the same as the featured images, as there will be no icon.
These little styles and tidbits are shown here: http://www.themeblvd.com/demo/alyeska/features/typography/