Marina Is Independent Pop Royalty On Princess Of Power Tour: Review

Marina performs at Radio City Music Hall in New York as part of the PRINCESS OF POWER Tour on September 25, 2025.

Danica Robinson

In a venue that reads as a cultural milestone for any artist who grew up steeped in pop-culture lore of the ‘90s and ‘00s, Marina’s September 25 stop at Radio City Music Hall felt less like a career checkpoint and more like a coronation — with her reign set to extend with the just-announced deluxe version of her Princess of Power album dropping at the end of this week.

The singer-songwriter’s first major concert run after launching her sixth studio album under independent label Queenie Records, the Princess of Power Tour opened with a cinematic, video-game–style vignette and its triumphant title track to set the stakes: this princess’s quest is one of becoming.

A single screen suspended above the stage, a podium and a tight three-piece backing band made the tour production appear admirably understated with elaborate, colorful lighting turning the minimalism into cinematic theatrics. The restraint can act as a reminder that independence can mean the freedom to simplify. However, the show felt maximal in practice: multi-level game visual interludes (with even a Star Wars-like prologue about a “cosmos ruled by heartbreak” to open the show) supplied the show bones, with the light show and Marina’s buoyant stage presence fleshing out the heart and warmth of the concert.

The nearly 90-minute showcase also underscored the creative freedom that comes with being your own boss. Releasing Princess of Power via her own Queenie Records with distribution through BMG, Marina shared that the setup allowed her to make decisions without the shadow of label budgets or executive gatekeepers. That independence has played like a thematic bassline throughout the era — joyful, self-assured and self-authored, all of which Marina fully embraced on stage at Radio City.

The superstar’s effervescent stage persona continued to carry the charm and wit longtime fans adore, but there was a new hard-won radiance to it. The opening visuals and interludes included callbacks to albums like 2012’s Electra Heart and 2015’s Froot, which were nostalgic rather than regressive — part tribute, part of the thesis that she can recognize all her selves and choose who she wants to be, all while still arriving at a new main character named “Princess.” When she introduced her previous single “How to Be a Heartbreaker” as “a song written by a girl named Electra Heart,” she both honored and distanced herself from her sophomore album’s character, letting Electra be a costume with Marina acting as the ultimate architect. Meanwhile, songs like “Venus Fly Trap” from 2021 rang with a particular sense of deservedness, with lines like “I know that money ain’t important and it don’t mean you’re the best / But I earned it all myself and I’m a millionairess,” felt particularly earned with the crowd inside her biggest NYC venue to date feeling like co-conspirators in that declaration to have done it her way, baby.

Musically, the show moved from darker introspection to unrepentant party, with its emotional hinge coming in a key section that moved from the explosively exposing “Everybody Knows I’m Sad” and the vulnerable glam-pop ballad “I Am Not a Robot” into P.O.P.’s lead single “Butterfly.” The empowering evolutionary alt-pop cut kickstarted the show’s high-energy sections with new tracks “Digital Fantasy” and “Cuntissimo” staking bold claims about her unwillingness to change for any lesser love.

The final section made up of “Final Boss,” “Rollercoaster,” “Primadonna,” and the celebratory closer “I <3 U,” felt ultimately like Marina and the crowd trading isolation. Where the show began with “Princess of Power” and healing from hurt (“Looking like a superheroine, I taught myself how to love again”), she ends the show ready to share that love, singing the effervescent chorus, “‘Cause I love you! And I know that you love me too / I want you! And I know that you want me too.”

It’s a tonal transformation, one most definitely worth celebrating with a few martinis as Marina truly thrives after confirming herself as her own kind of pop royalty upon completing her U.S. leg of tour. But the party will soon continue with international festival runs, shows across Latin, South America and Europe, as well as Friday’s release of Princess of Power (Deluxe).