Review: Marlon Funaki’s LIFE-CHANGING Year, Advice for Growing Artists, and New Single “Under Fire”

MusicReview

Dec 18

REVIEW

MARLON FUNAKI, A COWBOY HAT-WEARER—BUT NOT A COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER—is the artist to keep on your radar as 2025 approaches. Funaki’s soulful music combines wild flavors of nearly every genre imaginable. Funaki truly is a jack of all trades. His career began in a middle school jazz band, where young Funaki played the drums among his peers in Rancho Cucamonga. Eventually, Funaki also became a self-taught guitar player (shoutout to YouTube tutorials).

At just 16 years old, Funaki dropped his first single on SoundCloud: “Get Out of My Face.” This tune was intended for personal listening but ended up hard–launching Funaki into a music career that has exponentially grown within the past year. In December 2023, Funaki was playing a house show at San Diego State University. Not even a year later, Funaki was performing for a crowd of thousands at the Toyota Arena in Ontario, CA. He says his first house show, a San Diego birthday party, consisted of seven or eight audience members. Toyota Arena holds over 11K.

Funaki’s Toyota Arena gig was the result of hard work, pure talent, and a little serendipity. Earlier in the year, Funaki and his band took an Aviator Nation Dreamland show in Malibu, CA. This quaint venue from the seventies is a spot for good music, good food, and good old-fashioned adult beverages. Funaki had played Aviator Nation Dreamland just a month prior but decided to take the gig anyway based on the philosophy that every opportunity is meant to be seized. This mindset reigned true when none other than Billy Currington, a highly–successful country singer-songwriter, was among the audience members. After the show, Funaki and Currington connected through their love for great music, and a friendship was born. Not long after that, Funaki was invited to open for Currington at Toyota Arena, as well as other local California shows on Currington’s North American Tour.

Funaki exemplifies the power of embracing new opportunities and allowing your path to flow freely. Never in a million years did Funaki envision himself opening for a country artist, especially one of this caliber. However, Funaki shared this was “one of those opportunities…you can’t really miss.” There are seasons for each artist’s music, often fueled by accepting changes that push them in new directions. Funaki would even be open to Reggae or House experimentation in the near future.

To the readers who are artists themselves, this paragraph’s for you: Marlon Funaki is a successful singer-songwriter, who also works part-time at Guitar Center. Supporting yourself and your dreams until they support you back is a very honorable pursuit. Funaki’s most important piece of advice for you is “remaining humble…if you’re playing in front of five people or five thousand, putting your all into that show is the biggest thing.” Take every single opportunity that comes your way. You truly never know who will be there, who is listening, or who will leave the venue feeling inspired to share your music with others.

Funaki’s dream collaboration is with Palace (Palace if you’re reading this…you know what to do). But for now, his new single “Under Fire” is out on all platforms. This single is slower than his usual discography, but it best portrays his range to new listeners. It’s a “sad love song,” which we can all relate to, so go show it some love!