Part of a new generation of bedroom-pop stars, Omar “Cuco” Banos first broke out with a cover of Santo & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” recorded in his actual bedroom. Yet by disposition, Cuco comes across as a sleepless soul: Together with his fellow homebody hustlers Clairo, Rex Orange County, and Billie Eilish, Cuco helped cultivate a new world of up-close yet emotionally distant pop that beckoned to millions of Gen Z streamers, a restless space existing somewhere between dissociative pop and lo-fi study beats. They are the doom-scrolling faces of this planet, joy-starved hearts straining behind exhausted eyes that can only telegraph, “life is pain it’s cool tho.”
Practically overnight, Cuco’s four-walled waviness exploded onto open-air stages in front of thousands of fans. So the question that hung over the singer, rapper, and multi-instrumentalist’s 2019 debut LP, Para Mí, was how a young artist who found his voice in dimly lit solitude is supposed to adjust to the spotlight. He’s far from the only internet-native pop star to be confronted with that quandary, but so far he’s done a commendable job of maintaining his own pace. He rejected the major labels’ advances until one agreed to his terms in full. He bought himself a house on the block where he grew up, five doors away from his parents. He’s not letting life bully him into speeding up and losing control.
On Fantasy Gateway, Cuco is still wrestling with what this relatively newfound exposure means for him. His confident answer: continuing to be himself, this time under the bright lights. Recording in several studios and testing out a more elaborately produced sound, he gamely steps up his craft on his second LP without drastically altering his voice as a songwriter. He still plugs terse confessions about fighting inner demons into shuffling hooks and verses with carefree swagger, a magnetic paradox immediately apparent on the breezily bouncing “Caution.” Co-producers Manuel Lara and Andrés Rebellón—variously credited as co-writers on 11 of the 12 songs—both help to fit Cuco’s affably modest, CR-V-cruising personality into the luxurious new trappings as naturally as it gelled with his comparatively lo-fi early work. “Sitting in the Corner” may not have needed Kacey Musgraves on backing vocals, but the song delivers; the other guest vocalist, Adriel Favela, plays off Cuco’s malaise with howling, heartsick verses about lost love. A beat-driven jewel of norteño-inflected pop, it’s one of the crown achievements here, worthy of being cranked out of the windows of your Honda or Bentley for the rest of the summer.