MUNA formed at USC, and by the time 'Silk Chiffon' came out — a Katie Gavin song written right after 2019's Saves the World, featuring Phoebe Bridgers, who'd just become the band's new label head at Saddest Factory — critics were tripping over each other to describe it: Pitchfork called it a 'swirl of stomach butterflies,' NPR went with 'queerworm.' All three members are queer, and the band has never treated that as incidental to the music.
Their sound sits somewhere between dark pop, R&B, and synthpop, built on lyrics that don't flinch from pain the way a lot of radio pop does. About U, their 2017 RCA debut, set the template; everything since has just sharpened it.