Little Moon, 2023 Tiny Desk Contest Winner: Tiny Desk Concert

Bob Boilen | May 30, 2023 When 2023's Tiny Desk Contest winner Little Moon arrived at NPR, outward expressions of joy overshadowed the inner bundle of nerves this Springville, Utah band felt. The group's winning song, “wonder eye,“ unanimously wowed our contest judges Sharon Van Etten, Baby Rose, Sudan Archives and Albina Cabrera. Tiny Desk senior producer Bobby Carter and I, also judges, were in awe hearing singer Emma Hardyman's 4-octave voice warming up behind the Desk. She and her husband, Nathan Hardyman, told NPR's All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro that they began writing “wonder eye“ while Nathan's mother was in hospice care, and that he wrote the lyrics soon after she passed. “'wonder eye' incorporates the idea of multiple deaths,“ Emma shared. “I think it took the physical death to help us realize that death is really happening all the time — be it past versions of ourselves, old held beliefs, old judgments even. And to that exten