Los Angeles indie-pop trio MUNA are currently collecting top-tier collaborations and unexpected crossover moments like Pokemon cards.
The band, who originally broke through in 2017 with their dark, synth-pop debut About U, first reached a wider audience when Harry Styles invited them to support his debut solo tour that same year.
But though they were signed to a major label – where they tapped into brighter, bolder pop and wide-eyed optimism with 2019’s follow-up Saves The World – they were dropped by RCA during the pandemic for (as they put it to NME) “not making enough money.”
Forced to regroup, Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson spent much of 2020 attempting to build an allotment in Gavin’s garden instead (the soil turned out to be riddled with poisonous lead; the band settled on some hardy sunflowers) and by the following year, they’d inked a new deal with fellow singer Phoebe Bridgers’ label Saddest Factory Records.
"We look forward to this lifelong partnership and Phoebe raising our first-born children, as was included in the contract," they joked, “This will be the last time we speak publicly as we will be giving her our voices in a cursed golden locket”. As it turned out, they instead released their best album yet: 2022’s self-titled release MUNA.
On that album, the band also teamed up with their new boss for their standout collaboration Silk Chiffon - a breezy anthem of rollerskating down sun-drenched boardwalks, and exchanging flirtatious glances across a branch of the US pharmacy chain CVS (buying a pack of Rennies has never felt sexier). MUNA have form in the realm of linking up with music’s finest too, and at their recent New York show - at the city’s Terminal 5 venue - they invited none other than Lorde on as surprise guest.
And incredibly, that’s just the tip of the MUNA iceberg – here are some of the band’s most epic crossover moments.
Lorde
After inviting MUNA to open for her on the Aussie leg of her Solar Power tour at the start of 2023, Lorde returned the favour when she popped up as a surprise guest at the band’s New York show in May. It’s not the first time they’ve all collaborated – they previously teamed up at Adelaide Festival to perform MUNA’s Kind Of Girl – but recruiting the New Zealand pop icon to belt out Phoebe Bridgers’ Silk Chiffon verse was a particularly genius move.
Phoebe Bridgers
The OG guest star of Silk Chiffon, Phoebe Bridgers isn’t just MUNA’s new label boss – she’s practically the fourth member of the band at this point. As well as guesting on their third record’s biggest hit, the indie singer-songwriter also made a cameo in the music video, which is inspired by 1999’s cult LGBTQ satire But I’m A Cheerleader. In it, Bridgers plays the pink-haired head of True Directions, a kitschy-looking conversion camp which fails miserably in its cause and instead becomes a hotbed of queer revelry.
Boygenius
Incidentally, Bridgers is also has her own super-trio alongside fellow indie stars Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. Renowned for its unexpected collabs – think Harry Styles and Shania Twain duetting on Man! I Feel Like A Woman! or Fall Out Boy making a brilliantly surreal appearance with 2 Chainz – surprise guests are a Coachella rite of passage. And for MUNA’s slot, Boygenius were all too happy to volunteer their services for the set’s closing banger Silk Chiffon.
JoJo
While MUNA’s crossover with Bridgers’ own outfit Boygenius felt slightly inevitable, their 2022 duet with noughties pop legend JoJo ticks the curveball box. Best known for her whacking great heartbreak ballads Little Too Late and Leave (Get Out) the two acts actually share a lot of common lineage – and JoJo brought flawless additional harmonies (and some incredibly wholesome on-stage fangirling during the bridge) to MUNA’s bittersweet break-up banger Stayway at LA’s The Wiltern.
Taylor Swift
In some ways it’s quite fortunate that Taylor Swift hasn’t joined forces with MUNA for a proper collaboration yet – it would be an almost-too-powerful meeting of the minds, and would most likely result in the entire internet combusting in a spontaneous eruption of glitter confetti. Still, it could well be on the horizon; MUNA opened for Swift on the North American leg of her Eras tour, and recorded a live cover of Folklore cut August for last year’s EP Live At Electric Lady. Could this be the start of a potent new super-group? Keep everything crossed, Swifties.
The Killers
Another redoubtable union that’s – quite tragically – yet to manifest in its final form, MUNA have still made their feelings towards indie-glammers The Killers crystal clear. Coming out of their cage for a dreamier reimagining of the Las Vegas lads’ resident fist-pumper Mr Brightside, the trio unlocked a brilliantly specific strain of sticky-floored student union nostalgia. Just imagine how much a full-blown collab would go off…
The Knocks
Seasoned collaborators and nu-disco heads The Knocks have linked up with everyone from Florida-based duo Sofi Tukker to house hero Purple Disco Machine – and their mastery of all things euphoric blends perfectly with MUNA’s grasp of soaring pop. Dropping in the early days of the pandemic, back in 2020, Bodies’ yearning for the past and its flickering memories of blurry house parties and sweltering suburbia took on a special kind of prescience.
Kelly Clarkson
Putting most people’s screechy karaoke atrocities to complete shame, Kelly Clarkson gave MUNA’s Stayaway the first-class treatment on the Kellyoke segment of her show back in February 2023. Already a ballad that packs a huge emotional sucker-punch, Clarkson’s version feels like it could easily be a classic Noughties power-banger.
