The Starlight Darlins

The Starlight Darlins are a four-piece band of singer-songwriters Emily Johnson-Erday (she/her), Lauren Oxford (she/her), Gray Buchanan (they/them), and Sage Christie (they/them) who formed at Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, in September 2022. Each of the members is an acclaimed songwriter in their own right: Sage is a two-time Kerrville New Folk finalist (2022 and 2023), Emily has won the Walnut Valley Festival's New Song first place award multiple times and was a 2023 FreshGrass Banjo finalist, Lauren has been a musical guest of honor at numerous filk (sci-fi/fantasy folk music) conventions, and Gray is an accomplished fiddler and member of regularly-performing bluegrass band The Hillbilly Biscuits. All four Darlins share songwriting duties equally, which yields an emotional gravitas and an ever-shifting power to their performances. At the same time, however, they are fully grounded by the sound they've cultivated and nurtured together: one of sibling-like four-part harmonies carried on the wings of old-time instrumentation, with songs that are deeply rooted in the folk tradition even as they blur those same boundaries and push them into new directions emotionally and musically.