Fayluna came onto the Boston dream pop scene less than a year ago like a burst of light, her devotion to her music shining brightly amongst an ever-growing genre. Despite the three-hour time difference between us, Francesca Londono, the person behind the persona, sat down in her cozy room, shadowed with blue LEDs, to discuss the effects of her debut self-titled release. Since the drop in March, Londono has increased her public-facing content, both on Instagram and at local venues, further expanding her listening audience. As an artist who’s been creating since the age of 10, this recent surge in her career has been, at times, as overwhelming as it is exciting.
I first discovered Londono in the most unlikely of places. Back in my sophomore year of college, I was constantly bouncing from shitty house show basement to basement, so most music blended together in a pop-rock haze. But one weekend I decided to check out a local venue, The Lilypad, for the first time and discovered my new favorite band—Retrograde88. This was how I first discovered Londono, the group’s singer, and their psychedelic jazz woke me right up. I quickly became their, admittedly quietest, groupie.
After studying at a boarding arts school in California for her teen years, Londono transferred to Berklee College of Music for production, forming the band her freshman year. “There’s never a dull moment being in a band,” Londono said, which can be seen through the otherworldly aesthetics and sounds of Retrograde88. But she’s always wanted a solo career as well. Thus came Fayluna, a more confident, Chapelle Roan-esque alter ego. Compared with the sometimes alien vibe of Retrograde88, Fayluna is more grounded and connected with the nature of this planet. When creating a name for Londono as an artist, she knew she wanted something with the same initials as her real name. But beyond that, both pieces of the name hold significant meaning to the singer—fay representing her mystical side, and luna being the Spanish word for the moon, a common image used in her songs. “I’ve always felt very connected to the moon,” described Londono. “It’s so bright and beautiful… and a very feminine planet.”
The song where this stands out the most off Fayluna is “The Moon & The Sea Share a Kiss,” an abstract love story between two of the world’s most mysterious elements. The whole album leans into very fantastical language, but nowhere more than in this ambient track. With lyrics like “Divine smile peels the rocks,” Londono captures a sunset she watched in Mykonos three summers ago. “The sea and the sky became one. It felt like the sun set into the ocean and [turned into] the moon,” she explained. Her description of the two bodies’ relationship as an ancient connection humans can never truly understand is entrancing. Simply—“They’ve experienced so much together.”
Much of Londono’s inspiration comes from nature; a call to animism, or the belief that everything in nature has a spirit. The artist’s music often reflects this deep connection. Specifically the last song “Melancholy Girl.” The lyrics mention becoming “part of you,” referencing the tides and night around the singer. The narrator of these songs is depersonalized, shedding her humanity in favor of the environment around her, a concept Londono heavily resonates with. “Nature creates a world for the humans… [where suddenly] it’s not about you,” she said. “If you become one with nature you can understand the secrets of the world.” In this reflective track, she does just that, allowing her sadness to drift away and instead learn from “the stars above.”
The album, similarly, is very place-oriented. Londono detailed the history behind each song in post captions on her Instagram, capturing her emotional state from memories, times she was traveling, or even something as mundane as being in her grandmother’s backyard. That one specifically is “Berry Blood,” probably my current favorite from the project with its careful imagery contrasted with powerful vocals. As she laid in the backyard, she had the urge to squish different berries to see what color would splatter. The specific berry focused on here is the pokeberry, with a dark shell that reveals a bright magenta center. Through the song the singer almost becomes the berry, magical synths marking the transformation. The referenced berry blood is “within” her “lungs,” now spilling out all over the song’s subject, whose love she so desperately craves.
All of the songs on Fayluna come together to create a very intimate look into Londono’s life. These were specifically picked due to their creation of closeness for listeners, as the artist has always felt like recording songs serves that feeling more. She probably feels the most creative while recording—her production background grants her a unique perspective on being in the studio. This perspective constructs lush soundscapes that evoke the environment around her. In “The Moon Sings To Me,” the instrumentals crash in and out, like the waves that are so closely tied to the moon in Fayluna’s music. In the background, synthetic twinkling is also added to demonstrate the stars in the sky. This doesn’t negate her love for performing, though. “Performing is very immersive… I love taking the audience to a place that isn’t in that room,” Londono said. To do this, she often utilizes visuals to accompany a live performance.
Some of these visuals come from her music videos, of which she currently has four. In recording these videos, she makes it a point to work with different directors, to have the chance to collaborate with new artists. The consistent theme throughout all of them, though, is to immerse herself completely in them. In her own words, she’s “not scared to get weird!” For example, the music video for “In My Mind” shows Londono in multiple beach locations, completely at ease. The lulling song becomes her mind’s direct depiction; very specifically picking the dreamy rhythms to create an “auditory essence.” “I’m just a side character, while I let nature be the main character,” she said.
Londono is in a very different headspace now than at the beginning of the album-making process. With an ever-expanding career in a fickle music world, decisions can become very touch and go. She admitted over our call how scared she used to be of this constant change, but has since come to accept that this is yet another part of nature. This aspect of the world around us is the main theme of Fayluna’s next album, coming sooner than her audience may think. “I still want to be promoting Fayluna, but I’m always creating,” Londono told me. That isn’t just new music, either, but expanding her art forms into even more unique ways of performing. She has plenty of new shows coming up to practice these ideas, which will only increase her shine, surely one-day going full supernova.
