Holly Humberstone

British singer and songwriter Holly Humberstone first drew notice through her dusky indie pop style when the track “Deep End” appeared on her opening EP, Falling Asleep at the Wheel, in 2020. The next year she joined the Interscope roster and issued her second EP, The Walls Are Way Too Thin. Throughout 2022 she continued to drop independent singles such as “London Is Lonely” and “Sleep Tight.” Her debut full-length album, Paint My Bedroom Black, arrived in 2023 and climbed to number five on the U.K. pop chart.

Raised in Grantham, England, as the youngest of four sisters, Humberstone grew up in a household where both parents practiced medicine yet actively supported the arts: her mother played cello and her father amassed volumes of poetry. During her teenage years she performed violin with the Lincolnshire Youth Symphony Orchestra before shifting her focus toward pop. Influenced by Damien Rice, Lorde, Bon Iver, and similar artists, she began composing material and testing recordings on her father’s computer. At sixteen she submitted several songs to an online BBC music platform; one of them, “Hit and Run,” received airplay. After secondary school she enrolled in a performing-arts program at a Liverpool college, yet returned home after twelve months to concentrate on her own music.

She later connected with songwriter, producer, and former Dog Is Dead vocalist Rob Milton, and the pair started shaping her sound together. January 2020 brought her first release, “Deep End,” which quickly gained traction online and led to a February support slot on Lewis Capaldi’s tour. That July she offered a cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees,” and in August she unveiled the Milton-produced EP Falling Asleep at the Wheel, whose title song became a breakout. In 2021 Interscope signed her and she released the singles “Haunted House” and “Please Don’t Leave Just Yet,” both later included on The Walls Are Way Too Thin. The following year she returned with the original tracks “London Is Lonely” and “Sleep Tight,” plus a version of Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.” Later in 2022 she compiled Can You Afford to Lose Me?, which featured a fresh title song. Early 2023 saw the arrival of “Antichrist” and the D4vd-assisted “Superbloodmoon,” both of which appeared on Paint My Bedroom Black when it emerged that October. She followed the album’s success with the independent single “Dive” in early 2024.