Written by Trending on Billboard
Next stop, HADES.
After sharing the new single “POSSESSION,” her first new music in three years, Melanie Martinez is taking us on a trip to HADES, her fourth studio album that’s set to drop March 27.
“Each song on this record explores a different trap set by the kind of evil, patriarchal energy that is HADES. It isn’t about predicting a dystopian future,” she explains in a statement announcing the new collection. “It’s about recognizing destructive patterns that already exist. The same dynamics repeating in different places. Control disguised as protection. Cruelty framed as logic. Exploitation sold as opportunity. Once you start noticing those threads, it becomes hard to ignore them.”
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HADES is an appropriately hot theme for this alt-pop phenom. Following its release last month, “POSSESSION” was by some distance the favorite new cut of the week, as chosen by readers of Billboard.com. Also, the track debuted with more than 2.7 million Spotify streams in its first 24 hours and has surpassed 10 million to date, according to reps at Warner Music. It’s now Martinez’s fastest-streaming release and the biggest female debut of 2026.
HADES is the followup to 2023’s Portals, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her third consecutive top 10 appearance on the chart. Portals went all the way to No. 1 on Australia’s ARIA Chart. Her debut album from 2015, Cry Baby, peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200, and her sophomore album from 2019, K–12, hit No. 3 on the all-genres tally.
Martinez burst into the public consciousness in 2012 as a contestant on season 3 of The Voice. Although she didn’t claim the crown, she’s been winning ever since. Career streams top 30 billion, including upwards of 5.5 billion official YouTube views with more than 62 million followers across platforms.
Meanwhile, Cry Baby spawned the perfume of the same name, which was self-released the year after the album’s release. It was a sell-out. Later, she partnered with Flower Shop Perfume on a perfume line, the first of which arrived in 2023 — with similar success to its predecessor.
Pre-save HADES here.
