Melanie Martinez

In January 2020, Martinez announced an EP titled After School, revealing the title through her Instagram stories. The EP would serve as a deluxe edition of K-12. On February 10, 2020, Martinez's management issued the first single from After School, titled "Copy Cat". The song features American rapper and songwriter Tierra Whack. This marks the first time that Whack has worked in a professional capacity with Melanie Martinez, and the first time that Melanie Martinez has featured another artist in one of her songs.

Martinez released her second studio album, K-12 (2019), alongside its accompanying film, as a follow up to the storyline of Cry Baby. The singer has been referred to as the "Emo-Pop Queen".

In March 2017, Martinez expressed her wishes to produce a film telling the story of each song from her second album, explaining "I'm currently writing a film... I'm going to spend the year working on it, directing, shooting, make up and everything so it's a lot of work". On May 15, 2019, Martinez released the first teaser trailer for the album revealing the title K-12, released on September 6, with the album cover unveiled a day later through Instagram. While the film was available in select theaters worldwide, Martinez also posted the film to YouTube and included it in a version of the downloadable K-12 album. In an interview with PeopleTV, Melanie mentioned that she has two sequels and two visual albums planned to follow on from the K-12 album and film. She said, "I have my next film planned out, as far as I want to do, and the film after that and they both have albums attached to them...Hopefully [the process] will be faster this time and it won't be like four years because I've done it at least once and I'm past all those learning curves that I had to kind of reach and figure out."

Martinez finished recording her second album, describing it as the stories of characters living in Cry Baby's neighborhood. In October 2016, she released a commercial for her fragrance called Cry Baby Perfume Milk, adding that the "idea for this perfume has been cultivating in my brain since the moment I finished writing my album." It was directly distributed by Martinez's record label, Atlantic, making them the first record label to distribute a fragrance. In November 2016, Martinez released her second EP, Cry Baby's Extra Clutter, a physical vinyl release of the bonus tracks from Cry Baby as well as Martinez's single, "Gingerbread Man". She released the music video for her song "Pacify Her" followed in December 2016 by a video for "Mrs. Potato Head". The video for "Mad Hatter" was released September 23, 2017. Cry Baby was certified Platinum on February 24, 2017.

On December 4, 2017, Timothy Heller, a woman with whom Martinez once shared a friendship, alleged via Twitter that Martinez had sexually assaulted and raped her. The following day, Martinez tweeted a response to Heller's accusations, saying the allegations "horrified and saddened" her, and that Heller "never said no to what [they] chose to do together". On December 9, 2017, Martinez released a second statement, thanking her fans for citing Heller's "false statements". She concluded the statement with: "...I would never be intimate with someone without their absolute consent." Martinez released the song "Piggyback" on SoundCloud, an act believed to be in response to Heller's accusations.

Martinez later released her debut studio album, Cry Baby (2015), which went on to be certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in February 2017. Martinez’s songs "Sippy Cup", "Mad Hatter", "Mrs. Potato Head", "Cry Baby", "Pacify Her" and "Soap", were all certified gold in the U.S., and her songs "Dollhouse" and "Pity Party" received platinum certification from the RIAA.

On June 1, 2015, Martinez released the single "Pity Party", which was certified gold by the RIAA, and the chorus of which samples Lesley Gore's "It's My Party". On July 10, 2015, Martinez released the album's second single "Soap". The official music video has over thirty million views on YouTube. It reached number twelve on the Alternative Digital Songs chart, and number sixteen on the Pop Digital Songs chart. "Sippy Cup" followed on July 31, followed by the album fourteen days later. Cry Baby was released on August 14, 2015, to moderate critical acclaim. The album debuted at number 6 on the Billboard 200. Martinez released a Christmas-themed single, "Gingerbread Man", in December 2015. She initially released the song on SoundCloud on December 21, 2015 as a "gift for her fans", but later released the track on iTunes in January 2016 as a single. The music video of her song "Cry Baby" was released on March 14, 2016. The karaoke-style music video for "Alphabet Boy", which Martinez directed, was released on June 2, 2016. Martinez released double feature videos for "Soap" and "Training Wheels" together, as well as "Tag, You're It" and "Milk and Cookies."

Her song "Play Date", originally released on the deluxe version of Cry Baby in 2015, became one of the top 100 most-played songs on Spotify in the US after gaining popularity on the application, TikTok. Martinez is currently writing a music video for "Play Date" which she plans to shoot at her home.

Martinez collaborated with cosmetics company Lime Crime, Inc. to release two "exclusive" lipsticks: a blue lipstick called "Cry Baby" on August 17, 2015, and a brown lipstick called "Teddy Bear" on March 9, 2016. On October 25, 2016, she released a commercial for a new fragrance called Cry Baby Perfume Milk. It was directly distributed by Martinez's label, the first record label to distribute a fragrance.

After the show, Martinez began working independently on original material, which she says she spent the majority of 2013 writing. She released her debut single, "Dollhouse", on February 9, 2014.

On April 7, 2014, Martinez signed to Atlantic Records and announced she would tour. She released her debut EP, Dollhouse, on May 19, 2014. The only single from the EP, "Carousel", was also certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and featured in a preview for FX's miniseries American Horror Story: Freak Show. The song reached number nine on the Alternative Digital Songs chart. A video for the track was also released.

Martinez's music has been described by The Guardian as "off-kilter, sweary electropop". Rolling Stone described Martinez's music as "twisted lullabies about love, danger and madness", and compared her music to that of "'Coin-Operated Boy'-era Dresden Dolls" and Lana Del Rey. The New York Times' s Jon Pareles described her music as "perch[ing] prettily tinkling keyboards and concise pop choruses amid the slow, ominous basslines and twitchy percussion of Southern hip-hop – a candy-coated variation on the dirges of Lorde and Lana Del Rey", and described her voice, which has been classified as mezzo-soprano by Keaton Bell of the Red Dirt Report, as "whispery, sardonic, tearful, [and] furious". Billboard' s Jason Lipshutz also compared Martinez to Del Rey and Lorde, saying, "Martinez is clearly cribbing from the dimly lit pop stylings of Lorde and Lana Del Rey, but while her wispy delivery strikes the same femme fatale poses, she lacks the subtlety of her influences", and that "Martinez is admirably ambitious, but her insistence on sticking to Cry Baby' s central idea leaves her contorting into uncomfortable positions". The Guardian called her image "doll-like and decidedly emo...hyperreal", and described her music as "part-nursery rhyme, part tragic life story".

In 2012, during her junior year of high school, Martinez participated in the MSG Varsity Talent Show, a televised talent competition. She sang The Beatles' rendition of "Money (That's What I Want)" by Barrett Strong and "Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)" by The Four Tops. She was eliminated in the second round.

Later in 2012, Martinez auditioned for the third season of The Voice. She had not watched the show herself prior to the audition. The initial, untelevised audition was an open call, held at Javits Center. She recalls that while she and her mother were driving to the audition, her mother's car broke down before they reached the Queens–Midtown Tunnel, and the two were forced to "hitchhike" a taxicab in order to get there. Several months after the initial audition, while at Roosevelt Field Mall, Martinez received word that she had advanced to the "second round". She then received multiple callbacks until she was finally selected to audition on the show itself.

Melanie Adele Martinez (born April 28, 1995) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, director, photographer, and screenwriter. Born in Astoria, Queens, and raised in Baldwin, New York, Martinez rose to prominence in 2012 after appearing on the American television vocal talent show The Voice. Following the show, she released her debut single "Dollhouse", followed by her debut EP of the same name (2014), through Atlantic Records.