Sofía Valdés is a 24-year-old singer/songwriter born and bred in Panama, yet she creates the kind of emotionally honest and beautifully original pop music that could only come from years of exploration. After learning to play guitar at the age of eight and writing her first song at 13, the independent-minded artist sharpened her craft by studying at fine-arts schools in the U.S. and U.K., and by building an eclectic sonic vocabulary informed by everything from British folk and bossa nova to ’60s Motown and ’70s soul. On her debut EP Ventura, Valdés alchemizes those inspirations into a sound all her own, gracing each track with her indelible songwriting and beguiling voice.