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The winter after the Marías released their U.S. Top 20 and international breakthrough album, Submarine, in mid-2024, María Zardoya decided to work on some solo music based in the here and now. Staying on her own across the country from L.A. in snowy upstate New York at the time, she found a guiding question in: Is love worth the pain? The resulting solo debut, Melt, shares some pillowy musical essence with the Marías but lands somewhere more intimate, introspective, and searching as well as even more dreamily atmospheric. Using the alias Not for Radio, she recorded the album with Submarine's Gianluca Buccellati, and Sam Owens (Sam Evian), owner and operator of Flying Cloud Recordings studio in the Catskills. As represented by track titles like "Puddles," "Swan," and "Slip," nature and weather worked their way into the songs, as did her isolated, heart-damaged state. With a wispy vocal delivery that pervades the record, "My Turn" is a 1960s-evoking keyboard ballad with slinky bass and alternating spare and spiraling sections. Songs like "Back to You" ("I hope it brings me back to you") pine and sigh through a more persistent shimmery atmosphere, whereas the acoustic-rooted "Vueltas" has a Spanish/Latin flair throughout a track that nonetheless enters the ether. Melt ends on the trip-hop-inflected "Slip," which, with an implied futility, begs her companion not to go. The debut was not only well received, but by entering the Billboard 200 at number 13, it topped the performance of Submarine by four slots.

A1        Puddles    5:24
A2        My Turn    3:59
A3        Moment    4:34
A4        Back to You    4:35
A5        Swan    4:11
B1        Not the Only One    3:46
B2        Magnets    3:55
B3        Vueltas    4:11
B4        Water On Your Nose    4:15
B5        Slip    3:32