Sombr — Shane Boose — was studying classical composition at LaGuardia High School when 'caroline,' a song he made in his bedroom, went viral in 2022 and started pulling him toward a career nobody at that school was training him for.
He's since moved from the Lower East Side to Los Angeles, signed to Warner, and picked up more than 50 million monthly Spotify listeners along the way — a fast enough rise that he made his late-night television debut before he'd even released a full album.
I Barely Know Her, his 2025 debut, folds four already-released singles — 'Back to Friends,' 'Undressed,' 'We Never Dated,' '12 to 12' — in with new tracks, entirely written by Boose himself and produced with Tony Berg. It's a break-up record in the most literal sense, working through heartbreak and New York City longing across ten songs, and it landed him an MTV VMA Best New Artist nomination before he'd turned 21.