Album Review: Full Moon by Moonchild Sanelly

An album full of joy and vibrancy with which to introduce a brand new superstar to a whole new audience It may be only a matter of days old, but 2025 already seems to be the year of Moonchild Sanelly. Full Moon is her third album, but it’s the first of her records which feels like the South African born artist is on the verge of a major breakthrough. Anyone with even a passing interest in African music will be aware of Sanelly.

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Recorded between Malawi, Sweden and the UK, Full Moon is the product of the South African singer, dancer and poet Moonchild Sanelly's year of globetrotting. From Primavera to SXSW to Glastonbury, Sanelly's unique genre-defying meld of electro-pop, afro-punk and hip-hop mixed with her kwaito and jazz roots has been taking music festivals by storm and striking a chord internationally. Tackling taboo topics and bowing to no-one, Sanelly's album is very much her own; female sexuality and agency is the core theme, discussed head on ('I don't want no head in my house, I just want it in between my legs and between my thighs' she asserts on bouncingly anthemic lead single Do My Dance).

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When Moonchild Sanelly released her second studio album Phases in 2022, there was a major emphasis on the project's collaborative ethos. With guest features from the likes of Sad Night Dynamite, Trillary Banks, Ghetts, Blxckie and Sir Trill, it was an opportunity for the South African musician to showcase the varied elements of her sound and highlight the multifaceted nature of her artistry. Her style, which she describes as "future-ghetto-funk", has set her apart since her debut but with her third studio album Full Moon, Sanelly doubles-down on her unique musicality, presenting - as the title indicates - twelve tracks that epitomise unity and the sum of her musical parts.

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Moonchild Sanelly has developed a strong cult-like figure in the industry with her intriguing albums and star-studded single releases throughout her career. An artist who with every offering slowly reveals more about who she is as a creative, artist, leader in South African sub-genres, and now pioneer of her own style that infuses of Gqom and Amapiano in "future ghetto funk". Sonically, she is known for her sharp-shooting lyricism and storytelling, combining these with grooving beats that are influenced from all aspects of her upbringing and heritage, inundating all around her with her joyous attitude.

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'Same again' might appear as a dismissive turn to describe this third album from South African party starter Moonchild Sanelly, but it's her 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' attitude that allows 'Full Moon' to continue on the playfully explicit, brilliantly brazen trajectory. Styles twist and turn, from the unabashed radio pop sound that excites on 'To Kill A Single Girl (Tequila)' to surprisingly vulnerable closer 'I Was The Biggest Curse' via 'Sweet & Savage', which has all the mindbending pace shifts of an early 2000s Xenomania production. Lyrically, meanwhile, she barely misses: opener 'Scrambled Eggs' serves up the pitch-perfect reintroduction with "It's your god given duty / To appreciate my booty", 'Boom' compares the prowess of men in different tax brackets in a way best left to the singer's own delivery and the spoken-word 'I Love People' offers the kind of mathematical bars to give Ed Sheeran a lifetime of envy: "I tell him to subtract my clothes / Divide my legs / He adds himself / Multiplies my wet".

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