A  handful of internationally known musicians touch down in Tucson on Saturday. Why? For the inaugural Dusk Music Festival at Rillito Park, of course.

RL Grime and Matt and Kim are two of the festival’s biggest artists, but Dusk is about more than just selling tickets to see big names.

Dusk aims to put Tucson on the map in the music scene. To do that, the festival brings to the stage one artist with deep ties to Arizona.

That artist is Luna Aura, who will play the opening set at Dusk from 2-2:30 p.m, and she is just as excited for a major music festival in Tucson as you are.

“I love everybody on the lineup,” Aura said.

Aura said she knows someone involved in the planning of the festival and the founders called her about a possible appearance. She said she didn’t think they would call her back, but she held out hope. Aura said she felt both relieved and excited when Dusk got back in touch to book her for the festival.

Aura grew up in the greater Phoenix area  and has also spent time in Tucson.

“I grew up in Gilbert, and I lived in Tempe,” Aura said.

She now lives in Los Angeles, where she completed and released her new EP, Madhouse.  Moving to a big city like LA gave her more opportunities as a rising artist. She worked on the EP with sound engineer Justin Hergett and producer/songwriter Evan Gartner. 

“We started actually working on [Madhouse] in February,” Aura said.

She recently wrapped up a U.S. tour to promote the EP, which included stops in Seattle and Phoenix. She plays Apache Lake Music Festival in Roosevelt, Arizona, on Friday and Dusk on Saturday.

“A lot of my fans are in Arizona,” Aura said, which explains the many stops in the state. But she also has a large number of fans in other parts of the country.

Aura is especially familiar with Southern Arizona, though—she said she’s a big fan Bisbee, Arizona,  where she filmed a music video for the EP’s title track. The video shoot took place at the Bisbee Grand Hotel, a supposedly haunted spot. Did anything eerie happen while filming the video? Aura said her entire stay in Bisbee felt pretty spooky.

“We closed ourselves in an old, haunted hotel … and spent two days building a dream-like atmosphere that would be suitable for this song and video,” Aura told GroundSounds. 

Don’t miss the first set of the festival as Aura brings her atmospheric dream-pop to the Dusk stage.  

Follow Nina Ulloa on Twitter