Francisca Valenzuela Breaks Down 5 Essential Tracks From Her New Album, ‘MALDITA’

The Chilean singer-songwriter distills the full range of emotions from her first year as a new mother with heart-wrenching rawness. 7/30/2026 Francisca Valenzuela Francisco Finat Español Francisca Valenzuela condenses all the possible feelings of her first year as a new mother into MALDITA, her seventh studio album, which serves as a bold and deeply honest statement. Released Thursday (July 30) under her own label, Frantastic Records, the 12-track set navigates emotions ranging from hope and love to postpartum depression and confusion in songs like “Bugambilia,” “Malacara” and “Debería Tomar Más Agua.” The album opens with its title track, and from the very first lines the artist captures our full attention: “I curse the day I was born, I curse the day I gave birth, I curse my youth, eternal ineptitude,” she sings with heart-wrenching rawness over sparse piano notes. “The concept of MALDITA arises partly from this sense of ambivalence and contradiction,” the Chilean singer-songwriter explains to Billboard Español. “It’s about saying, ‘I’m in a great moment, in a luminous moment, in a moment of revolution, of love, of tenderness, and at the same time I’m terrified, conflicted, complicated, tense, on edge and feeling incapable.’ It’s saying, ‘I chose this moment; the world told me it would be the best moment of my life, the world told me I would know how to do it, and I don’t know how to do it. I’m suffering and it’s terrible. It feels like a curse because I fail all the time.’ She continues: “So, it’s called MALDITA because of this curse that goes beyond me, that takes over my body, my time, my energy, my heart, my mind, my everything. And it’s also called MALDITA because, when I explored postpartum themes and said, ‘OK, I’m going to dive into this taboo, this rarely discussed aspect of motherhood, this conscious perspective,’ I started to realize how motherhood — or the lack of it — is so intertwined with this feminist heritage of anger, hysteria, repression and invisibility.” But it’s not all darkness. Like the evolution of motherhood itself, MALDITA gradually blooms to offer deeply uplifting moments, especially toward the end. Songs such as “Extracción” (which brilliantly illustrates breastfeeding) and “No Te Aburras de Mí” (about adjusting a romantic relationship to the new reality of parenthood) are followed by tracks like “Nací Necesitándote,” “Año Uno” and “Komorebi,” showcasing a mother more comfortable and confident in her new role. With MALDITA, the four-time Latin Grammy nominee attempts to normalize a reality many women experience in silence due to shame. “There’s a cost to expressing yourself,” she states. “I have the opportunity and privilege to create a piece of work that explores something so personally significant and important for many women, something that many can relate to.” Below, Valenzuela breaks down five essential tracks from her new album. To listen to the full set, click here. “Maldita” Is a verbose declaration of my contradiction in existing — on the one hand, feeling like we have everything, or one can have everything, and yet still be dissatisfied or feel stuck with something negative. It’s a bit about that inability or that torment of not being able to mature, and the idea that sometimes one feels cursed because of a certain situation. I started writing it in this format of enumeration, and it includes everything from the most profound to the most mundane. I also decided it would be somewhat of an homage to “Maldigo El Alto Cielo” by Violeta Parra, which I really love. I’ve sung it on several occasions, and I adore this poetic, enveloping idea of listing these things in life that feel contradictory and take you on a journey, vignette after vignette of imagery. Regarding the recording of the song, it’s a direct piano take, just like that, ta-ta-ta-ta, and the ending is a take recorded at home with my baby running around, using my phone. I thought it was fun to open the album with this track because it has a very visceral spirit and also carries a slightly more playful, self-critical, self-deprecating vibe. That’s “Maldita.” “Bugambilia” Is about postpartum depression and, I would say, postpartum anxiety — not to mention psychosis, though I think it’s like that thin line, that delicate path toward a state of postpartum alienation. It’s called “Bugambilia” because at my house, I have a bougainvillea tree outside my window, and when I was stuck in that loop of breastfeeding, being alone in the house with the baby all by myself, every day I would sit on the same couch looking at that bougainvillea with the same bird, the same fence, the street out front. It was like I couldn’t believe that this was my life all of a sudden. It felt like life was happening beyond me, and I was in this sort of twilight zone. I wrote the song one night alone at the piano. I recorded it in one sitting, piano and vocals, in two takes. I didn’t have more time because after that [my daughter] Roma woke up, and I had to go see her in her crib. And I felt a deep sense of shame about showing the song, because I felt so guilty that this was part of my experience of motherhood. I remember [my producer] Francisco [Victoria], told me: “My friend, this is revolutionary. It makes me think of my mom, her struggles; it makes me think of you, of women. It has to be included.” And it was very emotional because I feel like it gave words and form to what I was feeling, something so distressing and so shameful. “Malacara” “Malacara” is a song about anger, and I call it feminine anger because I feel like women are often told we can’t be angry, that we always have to smile. It’s a song that talks about that feeling and pressure you often experience — it’s like reaching a point, especially postpartum, when you have no time to waste, you’re exhausted and you just say, “Well, I don’t care what you think of me.” The song has that rock spirit, defiant, flirty, breaking away from the paradigm of being a compliant woman. There are two things in this song that I really enjoyed exploring. Structurally, when I realized I wanted to address this topic and started writing it in this way, this catharsis of rage, I began looking for phrases from women who inspired me to talk about anger and who have spoken about anger themselves. There’s an excerpt from an essay by Audre Lorde that talks about anger as a constructive energy, and I loved that approach because I really do feel that the energy of anger is electric, that it activates you… and anger can be used as a catalytic and transformative force. And then there’s a quote from Cecilia Vicuña, a Chilean artist whom I find fascinating, who also says: “Your anger is your gold.” And I loved that — the idea that it was something valuable within me and not something bad. Because for so long, ever since my first song came out, I’ve been hearing people say, “Oh, Fran, why are you so whiny? Why do you feel so much, why do you get so angry?” So I love it. “Año Uno” When I worked on the album, I used to say: “De maldita a bendita” (From cursed to blessed). If you look at the album, the exact moment of transition is “Año Uno.” I wrote it with my partner [Daniel Matamala] when Roma turned one. And I was like, “OK, there’s a moment now when I can sleep, when the cycle continues but I don’t feel the same, I don’t feel cursed, I don’t feel consumed by this pain and anguish.” It’s a step from darkness to light. “Komorebi” “Komorebi,” which means “the light that filters through the leaves of the trees” in Japanese, closes the album because this moment is precisely more luminous. What I realized when putting the record together is that it’s not a triumphant album — it doesn’t end by saying something like, “I know what I’m doing, I’m happy.” Instead, it’s an album that embraces defeat, pain, fragility and imperfection. And even so, it says, “You know what? It’s all good; life is delicious.” Like, I can love, I can give myself, I can feel pleasure, I can be vulnerable. “Komorebi” is like saying, “OK, I’m a total mess, but you can love me anyway — I’m asking you to love me just as I am.” “Komorebi” is almost like meeting with myself, forgiving myself for being this monster for a while, or acknowledging that this darkness lives within me, and that I can accept myself anyway. Listen to it here Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox Sign Up