Half Moon
Marlon Funaki
Marlon Funaki’s Half Moon is a five-song EP rather than a full-length album, but it works as a concise, immersive statement from the California singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. Released in March 2026 as his Warner Records debut, the 20-minute set expands on the sun-warmed, self-made sound of his earlier work: psychedelic indie rock, soulful R&B, jazz color, Latin-inflected rhythm, bluesy guitar, and a hazy West Coast atmosphere. Its sequence—“Let You In,” “Skin,” “Wish You Well,” “Million Things,” and “Time and Place”—moves from the velvety groove of the opener toward increasingly textural and emotionally searching material.
The EP is shaped by openness, self-acceptance, loss, and the urge to feel fully alive again. “Skin” uses shifting guitar layers and a mid-song psychedelic-blues turn to explore accepting oneself, flaws included; “Wish You Well” confronts the experience of losing people while sincerely hoping for their happiness; and “Million Things” considers the lengths someone might go to in order to feel something again. Funaki recorded much of the music himself, allowing the arrangements to sound handmade yet expansive—full of swirling guitars, elastic grooves, and soulful melodic lines. Half Moon feels like a thoughtful evolution rather than a radical departure: it preserves his psychedelic-rock identity while pushing it into more detailed, vulnerable, and rhythmically fluid territory.
Half Moon
Marlon Funaki
Marlon Funaki’s Half Moon is a five-song EP rather than a full-length album, but it works as a concise, immersive statement from the California singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. Released in March 2026 as his Warner Records debut, the 20-minute set expands on the sun-warmed, self-made sound of his earlier work: psychedelic indie rock, soulful R&B, jazz color, Latin-inflected rhythm, bluesy guitar, and a hazy West Coast atmosphere. Its sequence—“Let You In,” “Skin,” “Wish You Well,” “Million Things,” and “Time and Place”—moves from the velvety groove of the opener toward increasingly textural and emotionally searching material.
The EP is shaped by openness, self-acceptance, loss, and the urge to feel fully alive again. “Skin” uses shifting guitar layers and a mid-song psychedelic-blues turn to explore accepting oneself, flaws included; “Wish You Well” confronts the experience of losing people while sincerely hoping for their happiness; and “Million Things” considers the lengths someone might go to in order to feel something again. Funaki recorded much of the music himself, allowing the arrangements to sound handmade yet expansive—full of swirling guitars, elastic grooves, and soulful melodic lines. Half Moon feels like a thoughtful evolution rather than a radical departure: it preserves his psychedelic-rock identity while pushing it into more detailed, vulnerable, and rhythmically fluid territory.