HAYLA has spent the last few years handing other people's records their biggest hooks—the soaring "In My Arms" with ILLENIUM, "FADED" alongside Nelly Furtado, dance-floor staples with John Summit that turned festival fields into one big shared pulse. But her sophomore album, DARK, out now as the sequel to 2025's DUSK, isn't interested in filling a room. It's interested in sitting with you in a quiet one.
The GRAMMY-nominated songwriter didn't plan to make this album so personal. She didn't plan to make it at all, really. "I didn't set out to write this album," she admits, "but after a few sessions spanning around eight weeks—I told my manager I was done." Two older tracks she'd always loved rounded out the collection, and suddenly there was a body of work—one she describes as "different but not forced, and written for the love of writing and catharsis."
The DUSK-to-DARK naming convention was locked in before a single lyric existed—HAYLA has been titling her albums after the times of day she imagines them soundtracking. What she didn't anticipate was how precisely the word would end up describing her own year. "The one thing I didn't anticipate was how much this pre-decided title would imitate and mirror what I was going through at the time," she says. "Behind the scenes I've been in the darkest period of my life. I suffered a huge loss and I didn't know if I had anything in me to write."
That grief runs through the record without ever curdling into melodrama, largely because HAYLA refused to force it. "There was no pressure applied," she explains, "so I felt that entering back into writing was a really cathartic rather than stressful exercise." The songwriting sessions became less like work and more like company. "I was fortunate enough to work with some incredible co writers and producers that were real moments of light in all the darkness I found myself in," she says, before thanking them directly for being "spaces where I felt able to share and was able to create so freely and authentically."
It's a sharp pivot from the DUSK-era HAYLA, and she knew it. "I was initially worried about maybe alienating audiences as this body of work is different to what I've previously written and released," she says. But the fear didn't win. "I just wrote what felt right, and I think in doing so it's helped with my healing in a way too. I think I needed to write this body of work." Then, mid-thought, the record catches up with her again: "Grief is a funny thing... as I'm writing this now I'm emotional. It creeps up on you."
If there's a thesis for DARK, HAYLA states it plainly: "I just wanted to write something that was and is authentic and from the heart. I hope this body of work helps audiences feel as though they know me a little better and I hope that people find some connection and comfort within this album and maybe feel less alone."
The album's emotional high point arrives as an online exclusive closer, "I Just Hope We Don't Run Out Of Time," written with Belinda Huang and Nydge over a year before the rest of the project came together. It's the song HAYLA keeps circling back to. "It's very orchestral and cinematic in style," she says. "I'm excited for people to hear that one… I'd love to write more in this way too." In hindsight, she credits it with cracking the record open in the first place—the moment that "sparked something in me to write more of what felt expansive and vast."
For an album built on loss, HAYLA is careful to leave the door open on the other side of it. "There is hope and glimmers of light after darkness," she says, adding a note of thanks "to anyone who's been following me on this journey and for listening."
That journey heads back on the road almost immediately. HAYLA leaves shortly for The Dark Tour, her largest North American headline run yet, hitting cities she's played before and plenty she hasn't. "[I] can't wait to perform these tracks live," she says. Beyond that, she's staying characteristically vague and characteristically prolific: "There will be more music and I can't wait to share what's next!!"
DARK is out now, stream it here.
Photos by Yev Kazannik
