The Shape of Blue, out October 30, 2026 on Hopeless Records, is the second Arankai album and the one Oscar Porter says he needed to write. He started it while juggling the project's growing buzz with his other job as bassist in the metalcore band Archers, who had just signed for a debut album, and the stress got bad enough that he called his wife convinced he was having a heart attack. He chose Arankai. He's said they all cried when he told Archers.
The project began as an outlet for songs that didn't fit metalcore. Porter grew up in a strict, devout household on Paramore, Underoath and Anberlin, and the first Arankai songs he finished, the trap- and hip-hop-leaning "Hangman" and "A Good Day to Die," went out just to see what would happen; nine months later the royalties covered his rent. "Contortionist," in 2025, was the song that let him write something honest instead of chasing numbers, and the debut A Portrait of Red came out later that year as the first part of a planned trilogy, set in a near-future cyberpunk city.