Over the moon with The Marías in Oakland

How do you describe a band like The Marías? Billed as alt-pop, the Los Angeles band
incorporates a variety of genres, from reggaeton to jazz, bedroom pop, and more. However you describe it, one thing for sure is that The Marías offer listeners an escape into dream worlds.

Known their soft blend of jazzy percussion by Josh Conway, dreamy guitars and keys by Jesse Perlman and Edward James, respectively, funky bass lines, and the distinctively smoke-velvet vocals of their frontwoman María Zardoya, the band’s live performance whisks concert-goers away on a trip to tranquility. The band created a name for itself with two-part EPs Superclean Vol.1 and Superclean Vol. II, as well as debut album Cinema, which was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for ‘Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical’. Their latest release, Submarine, is a gorgeous album that continues to prove their mastery.

Kicking off the tour for the album, The Marías sold out two nights at Oakland’s Fox Theater.

The set opened with band members taking the stage to an instrumental intro, with lights flickering blue in sync with sonar pings. María’s silhouette behind a circular portal was then the only thing that illuminated the stage as the band led into “Hamptons” off Submarine. María’s gentleness was evident through the way she moved around the stage: a delicate, feather-like nature that perfectly fit with the melodic dreamy bedroom pop songs.

Everything about the set was incredibly intimate and organic, even with a theater full of attendees. The production was well thought out, especially during “Over The Moon”. María sat in the center of the circular portal as it illuminated white behind her, with fog filling the entirety of the stage emulating clouds — making it look quite literally like someone over the moon. As María sang in Spanish and English, she and her band maintained emotional and artistic cohesion flawlessly.

After walking offstage for a brief outfit change, María and the band returned for an extensive encore featuring songs “Just A Feeling”, the punchy “Calling U Back”, “All I Really Want Is You”, and fan-favorite “Cariño”. To answer the question posed at the beginning of this article — The Marías sound like how you feel when you’re hopelessly in love. Their music moves you to a whole other dimension and radiates your soul.

Photography by Sabrina Poei

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