City of the Sun may live in Brooklyn, New York, but their genre-defying music drifts like a tide across borders. They weave together a mosaic that pulls from a global array of sounds and cultures. Shades of indie rock, Latin folk, blues, and World Music carry the weight of their stories and memories, revealing entire landscapes.

Formed by guitarist John Pita, joined by drummer Zach Para, the band later introduced bassists Matt Fasano and guitarist Marco Bolfelli. City of the Sun creates music that feels at once intimate and cinematic—like a film you can step inside. Since their debut in 2016 with To The Sun and All the Cities in Between, to their 2020 self-titled, and 2022’s Segunda Alma, the band has built a cult-following around the globe. As their profile rose, City of the Sun began touring alongside Peter Bjorn and John and Thievery Corporation, and their songs started to connect with fans on a profoundly universal level. Their lush and visceral compositions carry echoes of desert winds, city nights, Mediterranean summers, and the quiet glow of loss and transformation. It is no wonder that audiences from London to Paris to Athens, and beyond, have embraced them with sold-out rooms – crowds raised in reverence – listening as if each note were a lyric.

Their new album, Under the Moon, marks a return and feels like stepping out of the shadows and into new sunlight. Produced with the legendary Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, Built to Spill), the record bends through moods and geographies: the rolling surf of “Angeles,” the spaghetti-western hush of “Bajo la Luna,” the desert rock pulse of “Ciudad del Sol,” the Mediterranean sway of “Hotel Alma.”

Songs like “Un Disparo al Corazon” and “Twenty Twenty One” carry the weight of grief and separation, as the band ruminates on all that was lost during the Pandemic. Elsewhere, “Ella” and “Dream” shimmer with groove disco-funk energy, a new sound for the band, reminding us of joy breaking through.

In “London,” memory becomes music—the raw ache of heartbreak folded into surf-rock currents and new wave hues, echoing the city where the band first discovered the power of their international reach. While with “Cinderella Man,” they use the boxer James J. Braddock’s story as an allegory for the musician’s struggle.

The collaborative “Vuela” takes the record even further into new terrain. Created with Spanish singer-songwriter Gizmo Varillas, it draws on the legacy of Argentine folk legend Atahualpa Yupanqui, intertwining Latin and African rhythms with a timeless, throwback spirit. It’s a song that feels both rooted in tradition and lit with forward motion—an emblem of the band’s ability to honor the past while shaping something entirely their own. “The serendipity of this song is that we didn’t write it for vocals. It just happened – Gizmo created a beautiful melody,” explains Pita.

Finally, there’s “Metamorphosis." The album closes like a final frame in an old Western—departure, horizon, the sense of leaving one world behind to enter another.

What City of the Sun creates is more than instrumental music. It is a language of its own—one that listeners across continents understand instinctively. Their stories shine through in the rhythmic fire of Pita’s Ecuadorian roots, in the pulse of Para’s percussion, in the global sensibilities Marco and Matt bring to the band’s evolving sound. Under the Moon is both a reflection of their shared journey and a signifier for what’s to come.

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