How pink skies and a remote Icelandic town changed Humbe’s new album

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Humbe believes that even on a terrible day, something as simple as a pink sunset can completely turn things around.

Growing up in Monterrey, Mexico, the singer-songwriter often looked at clouds, finding comfort and creative ideas in their unusual shapes and how the light shone through them. When he began working on his latest album, “Dueño del Cielo,” released this past Saturday, he chose Iceland – a place with nearly endless daylight in the summer – as the perfect environment to finish it.

The singer described his sixth album as representing a desolate, burned-out world. He aimed to capture that feeling of isolation and express it through the personal thoughts and conversations featured on the record.

Humbe started making music when he was very young, but he first gained attention during the pandemic by posting clips of his work online. He released his first album, “Entropía,” in 2021, which led to a Latin Grammy award for best new artist. Since then, he’s become popular for his 2023 song “Fantasmas,” a tribute to his grandfather for Día de los Muertos that often becomes a viral hit around the holiday each year.

“Dueño del Cielo” is the third and final album in a series, following “Esencia” (2023) and “Armagedón” (2024). The new album showcases a clear shift in style, both in the lyrics and the music itself. The opening track, “Luz de Luna,” combines a tender piano ballad with bursts of punk guitar and unexpected drum beats, expressing a longing to stay connected with someone. Songs like “Harry Stamper” and “Sábanas” use dreamy synthesizers and choppy vocals to build an otherworldly atmosphere.

During a recent visit to Los Angeles, De Los spoke with 25-year-old Latin pop singer Humbe just before the release of his new album, “Dueño del Cielo.” Next year, Humbe will be hitting the road for his first U.S. tour, including a performance at the Wiltern on April 9th.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

My new album, “Dueño del Cielo,” is coming out soon, and it feels unreal! I’ve spent five years working on it, starting at the very beginning of the pandemic. The title track was the first song I wrote, and it really captures a lot of what I was feeling – a sense of rebirth and personal growth. Overall, “Dueño del Cielo” is about rising again. I tend to get very attached to who I am at any given moment and resist change, and that’s where a lot of my frustration comes from.

This album taught me that change is part of life in the best way possible.

This album completes a series that began with “Esencia” and “Armagedón.” I started to feel like these albums were meant to be a trilogy – it felt like fate, really. It wasn’t just coincidence. I realized they all celebrated life, and that connected them as a complete set.

This album explores the core of who we are. ‘Esencia’ is a celebration of self, while ‘Armagedón’ represents something – like a difficult relationship or addiction – that can fundamentally change you. It might initially seem exciting, but it quickly becomes destructive. Finally, ‘Dueño del Cielo’ is about rediscovering yourself and realizing you can rebuild and be reborn even after hardship.

When I was deciding how to wrap up the series, I was really struggling with finding personal happiness. It wasn’t one particular thing, but a build-up of everything that was overwhelming me. I felt burnt out and started slipping into a depression, and I wasn’t able to find the drive to do anything about it.

I came to understand that my struggles stemmed from searching for something that might not have actually been missing in the first place. I realized life is a process of constant change – breaking things down and building them back up. That’s been my approach, and I plan to continue living this way.

Some of the new album was recorded in a small town in Iceland. The idea came about when I was in Mexico City with my brother and his girlfriend. We realized we were young and had the freedom to do what we wanted. I’d been working on the album for five years without finishing it, and we felt we were getting sidetracked. So we decided to take advantage of our freedom and the upcoming summer to travel to Iceland and focus on completing it.

We picked up our tickets at the sushi bar and then headed out. The trip was amazing – we were gone for a month and a half. It was summertime, and the days were incredibly long, filled with constant daylight. Even at the darkest point, it was just a beautiful blue glow. It felt like living in a poem, everything was so beautiful.

I pictured this album as a desolate world, like a planet reduced to ashes. To capture that feeling, I put myself in a lonely headspace and focused on internal conversations, which became the core of the album. Because of that process, the album really evolved and became incredibly diverse in its perspective.

Being in Iceland really changed me as a musician. I became much more attuned to the nuances of music and realized how much impact live instruments have on a song’s feel. I was used to creating music with digital tools and samples, but this experience was all about recording everything live, and it was a really different approach.

Following our recording sessions in Iceland, we finished the album in Miami in just 10 days. Even though it was complete, I spent the next three months obsessing over minor details, trying to perfect it. I struggled so much with letting go that my mom finally had to tell me to stop working on it.

When did your mom realize you needed help with the album? I was still tweaking it even while driving to soundcheck and right up until my listening party in Mexico. That’s when my mom and the sound engineer both told me I needed to finish it and release it.

She didn’t say it before, so I guess it wasn’t done up until that very moment.

With 22 songs, this is your most ambitious album yet. Was a long-form record always the plan?

I’ve always dreamed of creating a substantial body of work – something I’ve thought about since childhood. I was inspired by artists like Aerosmith and Queen, who used to release expansive albums built around a central concept, really crafting entire worlds. That’s what I always admired – the ability to transport listeners into a fictional universe through music.

I want to create a world of wonder and beauty for people. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been captivated by the sky – the light, the clouds, everything about it. Even now, I’m amazed by something as simple as a pink sky or a lovely cloud formation. It might sound silly, but a beautiful sunset can completely turn around a bad day and change your whole mood.

Did any particular sunsets inspire the sound of the album? There was one memorable evening in Iceland while I was writing the song “Murallas.” The weather had been foggy all day, but suddenly cleared up, revealing a stunning four-hour sunset. Because “Murallas” is a melancholic song, I found it difficult to continue writing about sadness while surrounded by such beauty. We decided to pause and simply enjoy the moment.

Wow, looking back on this whole three-album project, it’s crazy to think how much it’s changed me. I honestly feel like a completely different person! I’ve rediscovered a sense of childlike wonder that I thought I’d lost years ago – it’s like a part of me came back to life. And honestly, I feel so much more peaceful now. This last album really drove home the idea that change is constant, and that’s okay. It’s made me feel ready to face whatever comes next, and I’m really excited about that.

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2025-12-11 02:02