Moby (born Richard Melville Hall, September 11, 1965) is an American songwriter, musician and singer.

He was born in Harlem, New York, and raised in Darien, Connecticut. After eight Top 40 techno singles in the UK in the 1990s, his biggest hit was his album Play, released in 1999, which sold 9 million copies worldwide. He continues to record and release music today. His parents nicknamed him Moby soon after birth, partly after the novel Moby-Dick, which was written by Herman Melville, his great-great-great-great uncle. He plays keyboard, guitar, bass guitar and drums. He has also released music under the names Voodoo Child, Barracuda, Brainstorm, UHF, The Brotherhood, DJ Cake, Lopez, Mindstorm, Schaumgummi, and Pippy Baliunas He has received attention for his political, environmental and religious beliefs, which he has outlined in the liner notes of his albums.

In the early 1980s Moby was in a hardcore punk band called the Vatican Commandos, which released an EP called Hit Squad for God. He became a house disc jockey at The Beat and Media Bender's Instant Gallery in Port Chester, New York from 1985. He graduated from SUNY Purchase with a degree in sociology, and in 1989 signed a recording contract with Instinct Records. During this time, Moby lived in an established artist loft community in Stamford, Connecticut. He first avoided electronic music as a form of rebellion, believing that to punk rockers, trappings like drum machines, synthesizers, and dance beats, were still tainted by the "disco sucks" stigma of the 1970s. "Ninety percent of me just loved the music," he later said. "But then the fact that I could also piss people off with it, that was satisfying, too."

His first success was "Go", a progressive track using the string line from "Laura Palmer's Theme" from the TV drama Twin Peaks and the shout of "Go!" from the Tones on Tail single of the same name. It reached the UK top ten in October 1991, earned him an appearance on Top of the Pops, and features on his first album, The Story So Far (aka Moby). In 1991, he also remixed the song "Chorus" from the band Erasure. His remix (named "Vegan Mix") is featured on the limited 12" and limited CD maxi-single of Erasure's Am I Right? single" In 1993 he toured with The Prodigy, Orbital, and Aphex Twin.