_{By Abi Falin Horspool}

Sarah Hunter and Kayla Winkel—better known as Halfy & Winks—are cousins, best friends, and a singing songwriting animating duo with 53.8 thousand monthly listeners on Spotify and a combined nearly 140 thousand subscribers on YouTube.

Winkel grew up in Highland, Utah doing tons of choir, voice lessons, and musical theater while Hunter grew up bouncing from place to place mostly growing up in Hawaii, playing piano and developing skills as an artist and animator along the way. The duo didn’t realize they had a shared love for music until 2021. While on spring break together, Winkel (Winks) showed Hunter (Halfy) a violin piece she had written, and the two realized they both enjoyed music.

The first song the two released, “Oh Adult, Oh Child,” was based off characters from popular Minecraft server Dream SMP. “It was actually a joke song,” Hunter said. “We wrote that song at like 3 AM. It was never meant to go anywhere. Then I decided, wait, I could animate to this and then it kicked off from there.”

Since then, Hunter has animated most of the songs they’ve released, adding to the cinematic feeling of their music. With arching vocals, intense piano, violin, and digital mix-ins, their music feels very Cody Fry-esque (the duo’s biggest inspiration).

As far as music production, Halfy & Winks started out simple. “For the first like nine months of making music, we had no idea what we were doing,” Hunter said. “We were using GarageBand on our iPad, but we made it work.”

The duo’s most popular song to date was made on an iPad. Halfy & Winks said the day “Oblivion” went viral has been one of the highlights of their music career so far.

“Someone made a TikTok about it and then that blew up,” Hunter said, “We just woke up one morning and opened up our Spotify for Artists and our numbers were just skyrocketing.”

“I was like, Sarah, it’s Christmas,” Winkel added. To date, the track has over six million listens on Spotify and several million more across YouTube and other platforms.

Although Halfy & Winks started out making songs based off the Dream SMP—even collaborating with popular YouTuber CG5—they’ve since expanded to make music that can apply more broadly. “We wanted to make music that told a story,” Hunter said. “The Dream SMP was one of those stories that you could apply it to. People were able to find our music through that and then stay because it relates to their own stories.”

“I love working with words and piecing things together in a way that means something to people,” Winkel said.  “I think it’s almost like a puzzle in that way.”

Despite going to university in different places, the duo continues to make music together. “We come together to create the idea of the song and the rough draft,” Winkel explained. “Then it’s Sarah’s turn to record piano, then my turn to record vocals, then… We’ve made it work.”

Halfy & Winks’s most recent project was a song for the concept trailer of an original animated show, Cardinal Garden. “It’s always been a lifelong dream of mine to create a cartoon television show,” Hunter said. “We thought we could tell that story through music as well.” The song they created for the concept trailer, “Down by the Garden,” beautifully fits the cinematic feeling of the trailer. The song feels like it could be played by an orchestra.

“A few more years down the line,” Hunter said, “we would love to create a pilot episode for it with our music and pitch it to different streaming networks.”

Halfy & Winks agreed that one of their favorite parts about making music is the connections they make with fans, whether it be getting recognized at VidCon or receiving nice DMs on Instagram. Winkel commented, “It’s just a very unique feeling to receive messages from people that we don’t know, talking about how our music has impacted them.”

The duo took an 18-month hiatus from creating music together when they both decided to serve as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They had a queue of content ready for their fans, which Hunter’s sister posted on her art account and the duo’s music platforms while they were away.

Although Winkel served a mission in Kentucky and Hunter in New York City, the two agree that the separate experiences they had prepared them for their return to music.  The duo said that their missions were completely centered on trying to bring people to come to know things they didn’t know or feel certain feelings they didn’t recognize before.

“Our music has always had that same theme,” Hunter said. “But now we’re able define it better. That’s our overall goal is to help people feel things that will help them connect themselves to themselves and find inspiration and hope in life.”

Make sure to follow Halfy & Winks on Instagram, as well as Halfy’s art account. You can listen to “Down by the Garden” below!