Heleina Zara

Heleina Zara is a bona fide pop star on the precipice. With over 20 million social views, hundreds of thousands of streams, and a history of supporting major artists including Peach PRC, Hemlocke Springs and Gretta Ray — plus acting credits on Netflix’s Wellmania — she’s an artist who moves just as naturally in front of a camera as she does a microphone.

Her new EP Breaking Point is her strongest work yet. Intimate and raw yet vibrant and wickedly witty, it’s the sound of an artist who has completely come into her own. Heleina cites Role Model, Lizzy McAlpine, Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter as touchstones — artists unafraid to be uncomfortably honest — and on Breaking Point, she matches that energy in full.

The EP moves fluidly between vulnerability and defiance. Canada is breathtaking and aching, a cathartic reckoning with complicated feelings toward an estranged parent. Hunting cuts to the bone with razor-sharp lyricism. And Touch and I Almost Fell For It! find Heleina doing what only the sharpest songwriters can — making you laugh through the pain.

Breaking Point isn’t the end of her story. It’s the beginning of the next chapter.