WRITTEN BY ANNE TILLEY
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“Cancer Moon,” released October 16, is a dazzling, genre-bending debut from London-based musician Cristina Peña. In her own words, the track “started as an apology for anxiety [and] morphed into an elegy for never feeling good enough,” with an explosive final chorus that highlights despair, but never feels too grim to make listeners feel guilty for bobbing their heads. Drawing inspiration from Phoebe Bridgers and Samia, the track evokes an achingly relatable, beautiful emotion.
Peña compared the writing process to piecing together parts of a puzzle, stitching together excerpts from her endless depth of verses about the topic to form the song. Thoughtful lines fill her verses, as she sings, “I carry my guilt like a dress that I sewed from a quilt for my first country fair.” Peña’s writing is guttingly specific, yet ties into a universal concept of endless anxiety. As the chorus finally arrives and the song bursts open into a rock feel, she passionately sings, “didn’t hear what was said, but I smiled anyway,” a simple, mundane occurrence that, in Peña’s storytelling, contributes to a greater sense of insubstantialness.
The song is backed by a delicate, acoustic guitar, and includes heavy rock drums and moving electric guitar parts: a new world for Peña, as she describes the song as her “first foray into indie rock, pivoting from past folk releases.” Although her smooth, gliding voice perfectly fits her previous genre, it transcends harmoniously into the indie-rock track, integrating seamlessly into the instrumentals.
“Cancer Moon” builds off of Pena’s existing emerging career, previously receiving a placement on a Spotify playlist and garnering 8.5k saves on her first single. The previous success of these earlier tracks will surely be bolstered by the inclusion of “Cancer Moon” into her discography, providing a refreshing, exciting track, incorporating her signature melancholic guitar with a rocky spin, sprucing up her mellow folk collective.
