RaiNao releases new album "Marcriá"

RaiNao released her second full-length album, "Marcriá," on May 25 through Rimas Entertainment, two years after her debut, "Capicú." The Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, born Naomi Ramirez, is 32 and spent the two years between records stepping back from the spotlight before returning with what she describes as a more intentional, purpose-driven project. The title plays on the Spanish word "malcriada," used for a woman who talks back and refuses to stay quiet, and in RaiNao's own stylized spelling it doubles as a phrase for someone raised by the sea.

RaiNao built her sound by blending alt-reggaeton with jazz instrumentation, playing tenor saxophone herself alongside lyrics that swing between poetic and blunt in the same verse. Bad Bunny called her "my favorite artist from Puerto Rico" back in 2022, when she was still an unknown talent on the island's indie scene, and the endorsement helped launch her into wider view.

By 2025, RaiNao had earned a featured spot on Bad Bunny's Grammy-winning album, "Debí Tirar Más Fotos," and sang their duet "Perfumito Nuevo" onstage with him during his San Juan residency shows that summer. She also performed a session for NPR's Tiny Desk, momentum that carried into Marcriá's arrival on the release calendar.

For the new record, RaiNao traveled to Havana to record "Dandovueltas" with Cuban singer Omara Portuondo, the 95 year old voice behind Buena Vista Social Club, cutting the song at Portuondo's house while blackouts rolled through the city under the ongoing U.S. blockade. She also brought in the band Cultura Profética for "Dame La Verde," a group she says shaped her taste as a teenager after seeing them play the Tito Puente Amphitheater, and recruited veteran salsa singer Andy Montañez for "Cántaro," a track that includes her first ever recorded saxophone performance.

The interview does not lay out tour dates behind "Marcriá." RaiNao says instead that the record closes with a song about her own death as an artist once a work leaves her hands, and that the biggest lesson of the last two years has been learning to keep creating even when she is afraid.