Sam Hoffman reflects on her experience attending the Trilogy Tour by Melanie Martinez

Sam attended one of the final shows of Martinez’ U.S. tour at The Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

My mom: Do you think you’ll cry?
Me: No, I don’t think so.
Also me: cries the moment Melanie appears on stage

That should be enough to sum up my feelings on this concert. I cried within the first few minutes. End of review…

Alright, here’s the real review. This was the first time I ever saw Melanie Martinez perform live. I had been a fan of hers since about 2015 after watching a video in which teenagers reacted to two of her music videos: “Cry Baby” and “Dollhouse”. Since then, she has cemented herself as my top favorite music artist of all time. Yes, even more than the likes of Lady Gaga or Britney Spears. Melanie Martinez is one of those singers in which you felt tempted to label as a “true artist”, one who pours their heart and soul into their art not just for money, but to share their creativity with the world. And that was beautifully represented in this show.

The Trilogy Tour marks the first time that Melanie performed songs from all three of her albums. Not every song, of course, but a bunch of them. This is likely the last time she’ll perform songs from her first two albums – Cry Baby and K-12 – in live shows, so when this tour was first announced, I instantly thought that if I wanted to go to one of her shows, it would be this one. We missed the opportunity to see her when she came to Oakland, but in hindsight, that was probably for the best, and not just because my mom happened to be sick during that tour date. But Anaheim? That was the best place for us to go, and it happened to be Melanie’s second to last show in the States (June 27). So we took initiative to make sure we could get tickets, and thanks to mom’s job at Audacy (98 Rock) and her connections, we got them, and it was truly an unforgettable experience.

Now, if I were to describe every single detail of the show, this would turn into a school essay (though considering the theme of K-12, that wouldn’t be completely unwelcome). But there were plenty of highlights for me to explain even without going into every detail. For one, if you wanted to know just how much Melanie’s fans love her, they kept screaming every other minute before the show actually started because of things like the fog machine starting up. It quickly got to a point where the woman next to me was like “Why are you screaming? She’s not here yet!” Of course, once the lights went out, it was all over.

The songs Melanie performed from Cry Baby were, in this order:
• “Cry Baby”
• “Dollhouse”
• “Sippy Cup”
• “Carousel”
• “Alphabet Boy”
• “Soap”
• “Pity Party”
• “Play Date”
• “Mad Hatter”

Overall, it was a good selection of songs she picked for this tour, even if I was mildly sad to not see her perform songs like “Training Wheels” or “Mrs. Potato Head”. But hey, she performed “Play Date”, which was a deluxe track that gained more traction a few years ago on TikTok (thanks to that, she made a lyric video for it)! Something I should mention about Melanie’s style of music is that she’s using these three albums to tell a story about her alter ego Crybaby. If you were to look up any music video from her, you’ll find that so far, she has a music video for every song on her albums – the standard versions, that is. “Play Date” is technically not part of the story, but the fact that she still chose to include it in this tour is rather heartwarming. Also, she had a bit of fun with the audience during “Soap” and “Pity Party”. During “Soap”, she showered the crowd with bubbles, and then she showered the crowd again in little pink heart-shaped balloons at the end of “Pity Party”, which was of course fitting since it’s supposed to be about Crybaby’s (failed) birthday party. I was not fortunate enough to catch one, even though I was in the middle of the floor seats, but oh well.

After Crybaby told us her tales of her birth and early childhood, it was time for her to go to school, which is where the K-12 songs began. They were, in this order:
• “Wheels On the Bus”
• “Class Fight”
• “The Principal”
• “Show & Tell”
• “Nurse’s Office”
• “Strawberry Shortcake”
• “Lunchbox Friends”
• “Teacher’s Pet”
• “High School Sweethearts”

Something else you should know about Melanie’s music is that many of her songs directly address or even call out social issues. And yes, one of them got political. “The Principal” in particular was originally written for a character in the story that was very obviously inspired by a certain former U.S. President. But one of my top favorites from this album, that I’m so happy she included in the tracklist, was “Strawberry Shortcake”. Don’t let the title fool you, it’s not about the actual dessert or even the cartoon character. It’s actually about the pressures girls go through during puberty, and how boys suddenly act like, as the lyrics put it, “they ain’t seen skin before”. Every time we hear of girls and women getting harassed by boys and men, the blame is almost always on the girl/woman because of the clothes she wore when it happened, or even just the way her body looks. Melanie brilliantly calls out that mentality and says the one thing we all say: “Instead of making me feel bad for the body I got, just teach him to keep it in his pants and tell him to stop”. And let me tell you, as a girl going through middle and high school with growing breasts that happened to be bigger than many of the other girls, I would have hailed this song as my national anthem had it been released while I was still in school.

But probably the biggest highlight of the K-12 section was how Melanie ended it in order to move on to the PORTALS section. See, when the first single of PORTALS released, “DEATH”, I and many other Melanie fans were astonished to learn that in between K-12 and PORTALS, Crybaby had died. And for a whole year, we were constantly asking “How?” Well, this tour finally provided an answer: a Cupid shot her with an arrow to the heart. Honestly, that’s a neat subversion of the age old trope of Cupids using their arrows to make someone fall in love. It might have something to do with Crybaby’s history of failed romances.

I won’t linger too much on K-12 since we gotta move on to PORTALS, but before we do, I want to add something else. A while ago, even before I got the exciting news that I would be attending this show, I had thought long and hard about what my favorite Melanie era was, even though I love all of them. After careful consideration, I came to the conclusion that the K-12 era is my favorite. Of course, the fact that Melanie also made a movie for this album to tie the songs together in a, what she called in the trailer, “an eerily enchanting musical film” may have something to do with it, which I recommend for your Melanie journey. I don’t know why, but I have a fascination with teen films and their clichés and tropes, and Melanie’s K-12 film, in my totally not biased opinion, stands above the others in its own way. Melanie also wants to make a movie for PORTALS, but at this time she is sadly not provided with enough funding. My fingers are crossed that she gets to release whatever story she has planned for it in some capacity.

Alright, now we can move onto PORTALS, Melanie’s latest album released last year. PORTALS marks an important chapter in Crybaby’s journey as she begins to evolve into another being completely, as shown in her four-eyed nymph self, also known as the Creature. The songs performed were, in this order:
• “DEATH”
• “VOID”
• “TUNNEL VISION”
• “FAERIE SOIRÉE”
• “LIGHT SHOWER”
• “SPIDER WEB”
• “BATTLE OF THE LARYNX”
• “THE CONTORTIONIST”
• “NYMPHOLOGY”
• “EVIL”
• “WOMB”

You’ll no doubt have noticed that I typed the album and songs of PORTALS in all caps. Well, that’s because Melanie herself stylized them like that. Why? I’m not sure, but she did. And you also may have noticed that the PORTALS tracklist is larger than the previous two. I have a strong feeling that it’s because Melanie is the most proud of her work for this album and era that she just had to perform eleven songs from it than just nine. If that’s the case, it’s completely understandable because this is definitely Melanie at her peak as an artist. Long gone are the themes of childhood and school, now Crybaby enters a world inspired by astrology, nature, and fantasy in general. Probably my favorite performance was “BATTLE OF THE LARYNX” because as Melanie sang, she was joined by a video projection of a pink dragon flying around and breathing fire, supplied by on stage pyrotechnics. She capped it off by facing the dragon, naturally coming out victorious.

And of course, the final song she performed was “WOMB”, which marks the end of Crybaby’s journey as she’s reborn into a new body. The video projection showed an animation of the Creature as an embryo turned fetus inside a, well, womb, waiting to be born. But we didn’t see what happened as she actually was born, as I’m sure that’s reserved for the “WOMB” music video, whenever it will be released. As of now, we only have five PORTALS music videos, with possibly a sixth around the corner, so it will be a long wait to see exactly how Crybaby’s journey ends. And this performance – and tour – was capped off by yet another shower for the audience. This time, a bunch of pink paper butterflies. This time, I was lucky enough to catch a couple, and my mom advised us to gather a bunch to take home, which many others did as well.

But Melanie wasn’t done just yet. Before she ended the show, she gave her thanks and love to the audience, while also giving a shout out to her dancers, band, and crew. During this, she had her dancers hold up a Palestinian flag, and she asked us to scream “FREE PALESTINE” as loud as we could. From what I knew from seeing footage of her previous shows, she had done this at the end of every tour date, not just for the Trilogy Tour, but also during the final dates of her PORTALS Tour. If you were looking for celebrities to follow based on whether or not they were a Palestine supporter, then consider following Melanie Martinez.

Of course, Melanie also had the most iconic way of telling the audience that the show was over and we needed to leave: a giant projection of a Rushton Doll holding a huge candy heart that read “GTFO”. And for the cherry on top, she played a song she had written solely for the opening scene of the K-12 movie, which was simply called “Angels Song”. It technically was never officially released outside of the K-12 opening scene, so now fans are wondering if Melanie’s hinting at an official release for it. Because the Goddess knows how very familiar we as fans are with her unreleased songs.

And with that, the show was officially done, and Melanie was done performing for a month. I realize that I rambled a lot during this review, but I couldn’t help it. This was a rare opportunity for me to really get out some thoughts and feelings I had regarding this show, and Melanie herself. I’m truly grateful that I got the chance to see Melanie perform live, as I always thought that it would never happen and I would only ever see Melanie on a screen. Whether or not this will remain the only time I go to one of her shows, I will cherish this memory forever. I hope that my review sheds some light on her as an artist, and that you might check out her work on your own time.

To end this review, I will quote Crybaby from the K-12 movie: “You start in the womb, and you end into the tomb.”