Marela grew up in Seattle and studied
music technology while attending college in
Olympia, Washington. She independently released two albums before signing with
Jagjaguwar Records, who issued
All Around Us in 2015.
Alex Somers produced the album. Her fourth album,
Call It Love, was released in August 2017. Following the release of this album, Marela was dropped by Jagjaguwar, and she took time off from active performance as a solo artist while a student in the
MFA program at
Mills College. In April 2020, Marela's father, who lived in Peru, died, and due to the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic, she was unable to visit his home country for more than a year; these experiences influenced the content of her fifth album,
You Are a Wave, which was released in September 2022. ==Discography==