Melanie Martinez announces 2023 North American tour

It looks like Melanie Martinez’s “Cry Baby” character is coming back to the touring stage, this time as a four-eyed, pink-skinned ethereal creature.

Martinez announced the upcoming tour on social media on Monday, sharing news with a short video set in the same mystical forest as her other ‘Portals’ related posts, with audio from the song ‘Nymphology’ from ‘Portals’.

Details on the 2023 ‘Portals’ North American tour

The ‘Portals’ tour will span 29 North American cities, beginning on May 30 in Denver, Colorado. She’ll then make her way to the West Coast of the United States, heading to the Los Angeles area on June 9 in Inglewood.

She’ll then shift over to the East Coast on June 20 in Tampa, Florida, stopping in New York on June 28, and ending with two shows in Canada, July 14 in Toronto, and July 15 in Montreal.

Pre-sales for the show started on Wednesday, with general sale tickets beginning on Friday at 10:00 a.m. local time. Fans subscribed to Martinez’s mailing list received access to the presale tickets on Wednesday.

The upcoming tour will be Martinez’s first major tour dates since the ‘K–12 Tour’ was cut short as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tour will be in support of her new album of the same name, which was released on Friday, March 31.

The artist is fresh off performing a handful of shows in South America at the series of Lollapalooza shows in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile between March 17th and 26th.

At these performances, Martinez was seen fully dressed as the new iteration of her “Cry Baby” persona, complete with spray-painted pink skin, and eye and ear prosthetics.

Praise for ‘Portals’

“With Portals, Martinez delivers an effortlessly inventive, mature record that reintroduces her as an artist unafraid to start from scratch and tackle complex, difficult ideas,” a Rolling Stones review of the album stated.

“She’s letting us inside her world, and the story she tells is crystal clear.”

Martinez has opened up about the themes and message she hopes to spread with ‘Portals’, from concepts of rebirth, and comfort in times of grief and loss.

“All of the songs on this album are based on past-life-regression therapy books I’ve been reading for a few years now,” Martinez said in an Instagram post.

“All of them disguised with earthly themes for double/triple meaning, to create a frequency for humans to relate to while still here on Earth.”

In another Instagram post, she wrote: “I hope the weight of mortality that society has placed on people becomes lighter. I hope grief becomes easier for people while listening to this record,

“That they can enjoy this life to the fullest knowing that we’re all just here to grow, create, feel, and have shared experiences with one another to help each other evolve.”