Melanie Adele Martinez is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Astoria, Queens, and raised in Baldwin, New York, Martinez rose to fame in 2012 after appearing on the American television vocal talent show The Voice.
Following the show, she released her debut single “Dollhouse”, followed by her debut EP of the same name (2014), through Atlantic Records.
Martinez later released her debut studio album, Cry Baby (2015), which went on to be certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Martinez’s songs “Sippy Cup”, “Mad Hatter”, “Mrs Potato Head”, “Cry Baby”, “Pacify Her” and “Soap”, were all certified gold in the U.S., and her songs “Dollhouse” and “Pity Party” received platinum certification from the RIAA.
Martinez released her second studio album, K-12 (2019), alongside its accompanying film, as a follow-up to the storyline of Cry Baby. Her EP was released a year later in 2020, called After School.
Why did Melanie Martinez make k 12?
Melanie Martinez has revealed her sophomore record, K-12, which fuses the persona from her first release, “Cry Baby,” into a story ostensibly about school, but which incorporates far more.
Nearly two years later, it has come to life as a visual dream world of the 24-year-old’s own making, picking up from where her debut album Cry Baby left off.
“My main goal [with the film] was to display school as a condensed version of life and to show the parallels between the two,” Martinez tells Billboard.
In K-12, Martinez portrays the titular character featured on her debut album, Cry Baby: a sensitive girl with magical powers who are sent to a disturbing sleepaway school, where she must fight off bullying from students being mind-controlled and the school’s patriarchal landscape.
K-12 ultimately serves as a visual metaphor for how the world shapes us during the most primitive years of our lives.