Arlo Parks is the stage name of Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinho, a singer, songwriter and poet born in 2000 and raised in west London. Of Nigerian, Chadian and French heritage, she started out writing short stories and poetry as a child before turning those words into songs, and her lyrics still carry a poet’s eye for the telling, specific detail, whether that is a brand of cereal or the colour of a friend’s hoodie.
‘Black Dog’, released in 2020, became one of the defining songs of the pandemic year. Written about trying to support a close friend through depression, it takes its title from the old phrase for melancholy and pairs a tender, unhurried groove with lines of quiet desperation. Its directness about mental health, without melodrama or cliché, struck a chord with listeners who were themselves locked down and struggling.
Her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, followed in January 2021 and won that year’s Mercury Prize; she was also named Breakthrough Artist at the 2021 BRIT Awards. The record’s soft-focus blend of indie, soul and bedroom pop drew comparisons with artists she admires, among them Frank Ocean and King Krule, while her fondness for confessional literature, Sylvia Plath included, shows in the lyrics.
She has since broadened her sound with My Soft Machine in 2023, a more textured and guitar-driven record, and Ambiguous Desire in 2025, on which she leaned into club rhythms and dance-floor release. Throughout, she has kept the qualities that made ‘Black Dog’ resonate: an unforced intimacy and a willingness to sit with difficult feelings rather than tidy them away.
