It was “The Girl From Ipanema,” unmistakably, but in digital translation, getting us high - arrebataoooo, choirboy-style - on late-millennial nostalgia. Instead of immediately pounding us with perreo, the opening song, “Si Veo a Tu Mamá,” seduced us plaintively, with a well-worn bossa nova hook. “YHLQMDLG,” the album we’d been waiting for, was finally released on Leap Day - a mystical glitch in the time machine - but at first it didn’t seem to be the nonstop party we were promised. We reminded one another that Bad Bunny was supposed to drop a new album soon - any day now - and that it was sure to be back-to-back bangers. Instead, we filled our cups with pineapple juice and rum.

We knew it could get worse, but we didn’t dare imagine how much. President Trump, meanwhile, threatened war with Iran, and Australia’s wildfires raged. I thought I saw a fiery meteor streak overhead - was I hallucinating? - but Twitter validated my apocalyptic vision. The government hoarded an enormous warehouse-full of emergency supplies, forcing displaced survivors to spend money they didn’t have at Walmart. The archipelago, still half-broken from the brutal assault of Hurricane Maria several years before, suffered through hundreds of unpredictable tremors - an “earthquake swarm” that left people homeless across the island’s southern region and knocked out power for the rest of us. January had been too punishing we needed a fresh start. All around Puerto Rico, people were celebrating a second New Year. 31, 2020, I could hear fireworks from my friend’s terrace in Santurce.

Bad bunny songkick