Michael Marcagi

Cincinnati singer-songwriter Michael Marcagi’s ascent is a homegrown success story. With a career built largely through grassroots social media support, the folk rock singer has demonstrated that listeners are hungry for earnest storytelling rooted in age-old American musical traditions. Marcagi announced himself with “The Other Side,” a depiction of the claustrophobia of small-town life, but it was his cinematic tribute To taking a leap of faith— “Scared to Start” —that pushed his TikTok view counts into the millions. In a few short weeks, he had built a legion of eager fans and secured a record deal with just two songs to his name.

His debut Warner Records EP, American Romance, expands on that promise, highlighting the timeless sound and engaging sense of emotional truth that has made Marcagi’s music so immediately compelling.

Though he grew up playing and singing in rock bands, Marcagi always struggled to envision himself as a solo artist. However, his persistent desire to record some of his sparer acoustic songs—ones he rarely dared to perform in public—eventually inspired him to try his luck.

Dipping into his savings, he trekked to upstate New York, decamping to a studio outside of Woodstock to work with producer David Baron (Lana Del Rey, The Lumineers, Shania Twain). The two assembled a team of crack musicians to bolster Marcagi’s intimate and unvarnished guitar and vocal performances, employing folk and bluegrass instrumentation, cavernous rock drums, and luxuriant vocal harmonies.

All of the songs Marcagi recorded—including the five on American Romance—mix authentic storytelling with sadness, frustration, and ennui. Avoiding confessional outpourings, he turns his experiences growing up in the Midwest into vignettes exploring the cracks in human relationships. By his own account, coming from a largely conservative and religious town meant that a tightly prescribed set of family values were passed onto him. The EP’s title track explores this directly, sketching scenes from an archetypal failed marriage of teen sweethearts.