MUNA Covers Billboard Magazine with New Album Dancing on the Wall

MUNA is on the cover of Billboard, and the Los Angeles trio is arriving at this moment with a new album, a new single, and what sounds like a genuinely different headspace. Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson photographed at Mica Studios in LA for the spread, which accompanies a full cover story on the band's current chapter.

The new album is called Dancing on the Wall, and the lead single of the same name came out in February. From what the band describes, it pushes the tempo of their signature synth pop harder than anything they have put out before. Four studio albums in, that is not a small claim.

What Dancing on the Wall Signals for MUNA's Next Era

The article gives a window into how the band is approaching this release differently. Before the single dropped, Gavin pulled her bandmates together for a bonfire. Not a strategy session. A bonfire. Maskin describes it as unexpectedly emotional, the kind of moment that resets what a release actually means to the people making the music.

That matters because MUNA knows firsthand how strange release days can get. Their 2022 self-titled album, the record that elevated their profile significantly, dropped the same night the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Maskin reflects on it plainly: nothing is ever as important as you think it is, and that humility seems to have shaped how the group moves now.

For a queer band whose music has always carried real emotional weight for its audience, that grounded perspective is part of what makes MUNA worth paying attention to. They are not performing relatability. They are just being honest about what it is like to make something and then release it into a world that does not pause for it.

Why This Story Resonates Beyond the Music

Gavin, Maskin, and McPherson have been making music together long enough that the dynamic between them reads less like a band and more like a creative unit that has worked through something real together. The Billboard shoot, photographed by Erik Carter, captures that kind of ease.

For independent artists and creators watching from the outside, the MUNA story is a useful one. A queer indie band that built a following through genuine connection with an audience, signed to Phoebe Bridgers' label Saddest Factory, and kept the creative control intact long enough to make a fourth record that sounds like an evolution rather than a pivot. That is a path, not a fluke.

If you are building something in music or adjacent creative work and want to stay current on where artists like MUNA are taking their sound, [keep up with our latest coverage on Pass the Aux](/pass-the-aux) for new music worth tracking.

Dancing on the Wall is the album to watch this cycle. The Billboard cover story is out now, and with a full album rollout underway, this is early in what looks like a significant moment for the band.