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This Melanie Martinez trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and follows the whole story so far: the Long Island teenager who auditioned for The Voice with a Britney Spears song, the fan-funded Dollhouse video, the Cry Baby concept album and its storybook, the K-12 film she wrote and directed, the pink four-eyed creature of Portals, and the new character Circle introduced on Hades and Elysium. Along the way it covers her singles, samples, chart peaks, tours, perfumes and the artists she cites as influences. Early questions suit anyone who has had Play Date stuck in their head; later ones reward fans who know which coach she picked on The Voice, which song sampled Lesley Gore, and where her first Hot 100 entries peaked. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing. No lyrics are quoted, so nothing here spoils the songs themselves.
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Q 01On which TV talent show did Melanie Martinez first find fame in 2012?
The Voice
She was a junior in high school at the time and had already been eliminated from a televised MSG Varsity Talent Show earlier that year.
Q 02Which Britney Spears song did she sing for her blind audition on The Voice?
Toxic
Three of the four judges turned their chairs; she picked Adam Levine as her coach.
Q 03Which coach did Martinez choose on The Voice?
Adam Levine
She was eliminated in week five of the live rounds along with Amanda Brown, leaving Levine with no artists left.
Q 04In which New York City borough was Melanie Martinez born?
Queens
She was born in Astoria and her family moved to Baldwin, on Long Island, when she was four.
Q 05Martinez's parents are of which two heritages?
Dominican and Puerto Rican
She has described growing up in a super-conservative, traditional Latin household.
Q 06What was Melanie Martinez's debut single, released in February 2014?
Dollhouse
Its music video was fan-funded through Indiegogo, with friends doing hair, makeup and camera work.
Q 07Martinez compared the story of her debut single, about a picture-perfect but dysfunctional home, to which film?
Edward Scissorhands
She described the perfect lawns and identical houses concealing a screwed-up group of people hiding behind wealth.
Q 08Which record label signed Martinez in April 2014?
Atlantic
The label later became the first record company to distribute a fragrance when it released her Cry Baby Perfume Milk.
Q 09Which single from her debut EP was featured in a preview for American Horror Story: Freak Show?
Carousel
It reached number nine on the Alternative Digital Songs chart and was certified gold.
Q 10How many tracks were on Martinez's debut EP, released in May 2014?
4
The EP came out a month after she signed to Atlantic, and she toured it from June 2014 to March 2015.
Q 11Which 1963 Lesley Gore hit is sampled on the Cry Baby single that opens with a ruined birthday?
It's My Party
Lesley Gore's original was a number one in 1963; Martinez turned its birthday-party heartbreak into a full-blown meltdown.
Q 12Where did Cry Baby debut on the US Billboard 200?
Number 6
It topped the Top Alternative Albums chart and later went double platinum.
Q 13Which of these was the third single from Cry Baby, following 'Pity Party' and 'Soap'?
Sippy Cup
The album's physical editions came with an illustrated storybook written by Martinez herself.
Q 21Besides starring in it, what were Martinez's two other roles on the K-12 film?
Writer and director
She had planned two further films to close the Cry Baby storyline but scrapped them as too expensive.
Q 22In the K-12 film, what is the name of Cry Baby's best friend?
Angelita
Played by Emma Harvey, she and Cry Baby discover supernatural powers on the bus ride to K-12 Sleepaway School.
Q 23In the K-12 film, what is the principal secretly doing to students?
Medicating them to control them
Cry Baby poisons him in the song 'The Principal', but he recovers almost immediately.
Q 14Which video served as the conclusion of the Cry Baby visual story in September 2017?
Mad Hatter
Martinez had promised in 2015 to release a video for every track on the album, forming one continuous storyline.
Q 15Which two Cry Baby songs shared a double-feature music video in August 2016?
Tag, You're It and Milk and Cookies
The pairing makes sense narratively: the second song is Cry Baby's revenge on the kidnapper introduced in the first.
Q 16Which Cry Baby bonus track went viral on TikTok in 2020 via a Timothée Chalamet edit?
Play Date
It became one of the 100 most-played songs on Spotify in the US and sent the five-year-old album back onto the Billboard 200.
Q 17What Christmas-themed single did Martinez first post to SoundCloud in December 2015?
Gingerbread Man
It later appeared on the vinyl EP Cry Baby's Extra Clutter alongside the album's bonus tracks.
Q 18What was the name of the fragrance Martinez released in 2016?
Cry Baby Perfume Milk
Distributed directly by Atlantic, it made the label the first to distribute a fragrance.
Q 19Which cosmetics brand released Martinez's 'Cry Baby' blue and 'Teddy Bear' brown lipsticks?
Lime Crime
The blue shade launched three days after the Cry Baby album, the brown one in March 2016.
Q 20What is the title of Martinez's second studio album, released in September 2019?
K-12
It debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and doubled as the soundtrack to a film of the same name.
Q 24Which frequent Martinez collaborators, who produced her debut single, co-wrote the K-12 track 'Drama Club'?
Kinetics & One Love
The NYC songwriting duo have been with her since her very first single.
Q 25Which K-12 song was Martinez's first single to feature another artist?
Copy Cat
Rapper Tierra Whack guested on it in February 2020, though the song ended up left off the After School EP.
Q 26What was the name of the EP released in 2020 as the deluxe extension of K-12?
After School
It was delayed to September 2020, and neither 'Copy Cat' nor 'Fire Drill' made the final tracklist.
Q 27Where did the K-12 Tour end prematurely in February 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Brixton, England
It had begun four months earlier in Washington, D.C.
Q 28How did Martinez tease Portals in February 2023?
Archiving all her Instagram posts
A teaser then showed a mushroom in a foggy forest with the words RIP Crybaby engraved in its stem.
Q 29How is Martinez's Portals-era alter ego usually described?
A pink, four-eyed fairy creature
The concept has Cry Baby dying and being reborn as a creature stuck between Earth and the afterlife.
Q 30Which two Portals singles gave Martinez her first Hot 100 entries as an original artist?
Death and Void
They peaked at numbers 95 and 61 respectively.