Listen/Buy: Rough Trade | Amazon | Apple Music | Spotify | Tidalĭance music’s liberatory powers are palpable when the lights go low, as the sweat trickles down the small of your back. Un Verano Sin Ti is a resplendent statement on the necessary endurance and conviviality of Caribbean life. “Puerto Rico está bien cabrón,” he repeats, almost like a call to action. The electronic bomba banger “El Apagón” addresses Puerto Rico’s colonial status, gentrification, and ongoing blackouts in an unrelenting yet restorative whirlwind.

Whether he’s referencing his “baby gravy” on “Titi Me Preguntó,” or telling the story of a liberated Puerto Rican woman with Buscabulla on “Andrea,” UVST is a sprawling love letter that owns Boricua humor, swagger, and sharp social commentary.

Un Verano Sin Ti marshals reggaeton, dembow, dream-pop, EDM, and mambo, leveraging sex-fueled perreo one moment, only to muse over better futures the next. Bad Bunny’s appeal is as mythical as it is rare: The world’s biggest pop star-a musically inventive, charismatic critic who loves his island-releases the biggest pop album of the year, one that flawlessly effuses the sound and nostalgia of a beach day in the Caribbean.