Noah Kahan Reflects on a Year of ‘Change’ and Looks Ahead on His Birthday: ‘I Hope 29 Teaches Me Even Half as Much’

Noah Kahan is ringing in the new year — and celebrating his birthday.

With a year of “change” on his mind, Kahan, 29, shared a photo of himself on Instagram Thursday, Jan. 1, sipping from a champagne glass while showing off his wedding ring, with a sunset in the distance.

“28 was change and adaptation and understanding and growing and trying to go backwards and forwards at once and coming to terms with and accepting and being filled with gratitude and wondering why this happened to me and feeling left out of something important and trying to find the bottom of a never ending landfill and making the little guy proud and taking it all in and never turning my head away from the windshield even when I was terrified of the road in front of me and god I hope 29 teaches me even half as much,” the Stick Season musician wrote in the caption.

Kahan later re-posted a series of Instagram Story posts from friends wishing him a happy birthday. In another Instagram Story post, Kahan shared a photo of himself in a fluffy purple jacket as he prepared to blow out the candles on his blue and green birthday cake.

“Thank u bren for my cake love you,” he wrote in a nod to his wife Brenna Nolan, with whom he tied the knot in August 2025, PEOPLE confirmed. “Grateful beyond belief for all of you,” he wrote over a follow-up selfie shared to his Instagram Story.

The couple married in an “intimate ceremony” in their home state of Vermont, their rep told PEOPLE in August.

The folk-pop singer rose to prominence in 2022 amid his viral hit single “Stick Season.” The ensuing album of the same name was a meditation on small town-New England and a love letter to its people. Kahan has since collaborated with Hozier, Gracie Abrams, Brandi Carlile, Post Malone, Kacey Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini, and more.

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The birthday celebration comes shortly after Kahan began teasing a new album on social media.

Kahan created a TikTok account in early December under the username @thelastofthebugs, a nod to a lyric from his song “The View Between Villages.” On the account, he shared a snippet of a banjo-driven song on Dec. 15, 2025, and on Jan. 1, he penned a handwritten letter for a TikTok post in which he wrote he feels like he is “coming out of hibernation” in 2026.