A​ Glastonbury duet with Chris Martin shot her skyward​. Now, the self-reflective singer’s debut album is a marvel of candid songwriting​ – too candid for some, she says

Like many people, Victoria Canal failed to score tickets to last year’s Glastonbury festival. But the singer-songwriter’s solution wasn’t quite so relatable: Coldplay were headlining, so she messaged Chris Martin to ask if he could get her in. It was 1am in London, and Canal was drinking with friends when Martin called to make a better offer: how about she join him on stage?

The next day, Canal thought she had “hallucinated” the entire conversation. “I have had many dreams like that before,” she says. But no. Come June, there she was: providing vocal and piano accompaniment to Paradise in front of an enraptured 100,000-strong crowd. In the footage, she seems to be in her element, completely unfazed by such a gargantuan gig. In reality, was she nervous? She pauses and gives me a strange look. “Of course! It was anything but chill – it was the biggest stage in the world, with the biggest band in the world!”