Kristen Castro's 'Summer Rain' is a softly shattering rebirth in bloom

Kristen Castro’s new single 'Summer Rain' feels like a moment. The kind you don’t realise is life-altering until you’re standing in the ruins of who you were, drenched, blinking into the golden-hour light. With her debut album 'Capricorn Baby' on the horizon, Castro offers this track as both elegy and emergence: a sunset-stained postcard from the edge of transformation.

What begins as a hushed memory from 2020 resurfaces five years later, refracted through loss, healing, and a palette that draws from the cinematic synthscapes of MUNA and the melancholic guitars of The 1975. But Summer Rain is unmistakably Castro, both in its technical finesse and emotional fluency. There’s a quiet courage in the way she lets the vulnerability lead, never rushing to resolve the ache. Instead, she cradles it, lets it breathe, and turns it into light.

The track is all texture and feeling as airy synths move like coastal winds, guitars flicker like fading embers, and Castro’s voice becomes the constant. It’s the sound of mourning and metamorphosis occupying the same body.

Produced across a constellation of cities, 'Summer Rain' still feels incredibly intimate. That’s Castro’s gift: even with a global reach, her music holds close to the heart. There’s a confidence here that stands tall. You hear it in her choice to self-produce. You feel it in her refusal to dilute identity for comfort. A queer, Mexican-American woman crafting her own sound, on her own terms.

With 'Capricorn Baby' due out soon, Kristen Castro is building a brand new world, one track at a time. And if this is the weather of her rebirth, we should all be standing in the storm.