It’s not a homecoming for Ruban Nielson, but this trip to Hawaii brings him back to his roots.

Nielson, frontman of Portland, Ore.-based band Unknown Mortal Orchestra, has never lived in Hawaii. Aside from a few brief tour layovers, his last visit came during his childhood, when his grandmother died.

Yet Hawaiian culture has been ubiquitous in his life and music, and the connections are deep. His mother is Dee Dee Aipolani, Miss Aloha Hula 1974. His uncle is Hawaiian reggae artist Bruddah Waltah.

As Nielson was growing up in New Zealand, Hawaiian music was one of the genres played at home.

His parents, who met while performing in the band for popular Maori singer John Rowles (“Cheryl Moana Marie”), made music seem as natural as breathing.

“My mom used to do this thing when I was a kid: She would never sing the melody of the song; she would always sing harmonies.” Nielson said by phone from Portland. “I grew up around that, and I always thought that was a magic trick, that she could add parts that weren’t part of the recording.

“As I got older, I realized that’s a big part of Hawaiian music. I think it’s hard to maybe hear it straightaway, but the more I analyze it, the more I think my music is influenced by Hawaiian music, especially my acoustic recordings.”

Nielson said he took his first tour in his mother’s womb, when she toured Japan. The desire to be closer to her side of the family factored into his move to Portland, where he has lived for almost a decade.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra plays today at The Republik, in the band’s first Hawaii performance.

While Hawaiian music has influenced Nielson, the band’s sound is distinctly different; it’s psychedelic with elements of soul and funk. Synthesizers lend a lo-fi sound. These combine to create a hazy mood, allowing the music to sound like it was either created back in time or perhaps somewhere in the future.

“I’m attracted to that kind of music because I was really into old music,” Nielson said. “We didn’t grow up with a lot of money when I was a kid, so I got a lot of my music from making tapes on the radio.

“I’ve got this kind of a memory of listening to college radio station when I was in high school and listening to hip-hop shows and they would play Wu-Tang. Me and my brother used to record the radio show to cassette tapes.

“For some reason I got really attached to the sound of the drums, like crunchy drums on the cassette tape. I still make music trying to capture that feeling from when I was younger, and I still record things to tape, even though nobody really has to do that anymore.”

Following the show at The Republik, the band has four dates across Asia. Nielson plans to do some recording in South Korea afterward, and with some money available to record outside of his studio basement, he also plans a few recording sessions in New Zealand with his brother Kory, a longtime musical collaborator.

The brothers once partnered as band mates in the New Zealand punk outfit Mint Chicks. Separately, both have been awarded the New Zealand’s Taite Music Prize, for previous albums: Unknown Mortal Orchestra won in 2012; Kody’s band, Silicon, won in 2016.

“We grew up with the same influences,” Nielson said. “We grew up around our parents’ music and record collection. Musically, it’s not like I have to explain to him what my idea is. It’s very easy, we can almost read each other’s mind about what to do next.

“I can work really hard with him, and quickly, so that’s cool,” Nielson said. It’s a good excuse to catch up.”

Kory Nielson, a drummer, flew to Portland to collaborate on Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s latest recording, “Multi-Love,” as did father Chris Nielson, a horn player. The album, the band’s third, was released in 2015.

Risks were taken with “Multi-Love.” With a bigger budget, and additional equipment, it continues the band’s adventures with sound.

Nielson explored themes of love, relationships and trust, a bold deviation from material on previous releases.

Much media attention has zeroed in on the album’s source and inspiration: Ruban Nielson’s poly-amorous relationship, which included his wife and a woman, known by the pseudonym Laura, whom Nielson met on tour and who lived for a time with them in Oregon.

“It was the first album that I had any money to make,” Nielson said. “I got some more expensive equipment, and my life had gotten a little bit more crazy by that stage. I was talking more about ideas and things that were happening in my life.

“The previous two albums I was kind of a hermit. I was kind of talking about very introverted things, like dreams. … On ‘Multi-Love’ I was talking about my life.”

From the dreaminess of love to the realization his marriage could be over to Nielson’s eventual separation from Laura, those experiences flowed into the music. The album cover is a photo she took of his basement studio.

The album’s title track includes the lyrics, “It’s not that this song’s about her. All songs are about her.”

On “Can’t Keep Checking My Phone,” Nielson sings, “I’m kinda busy, could you call back again? I’m sure you’ll come back.” Laura’s visa was not renewed after her second stay in Oregon.

Nielson said he came up with the album title before he started making the album, and spent some time contemplating its definition.

“It seems like there’s a lot of different ways to hate people but not so many different kinds of love,” he said. “That’s where I started from, that idea, and built it from there.”

Fans have responded to the latest album. “Multi-Love” is Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s most commercially successful album, so far, peaking at No. 98 on the Billboard 200 chart.

“I kind of just hoped that people, that my fans that I had already, the people that were already interested in my music, didn’t reject it,” Nielson said. “It’s much more successful than the other two albums, so it was a good experience.

“It’s kind of hard now,” he added. “It seems like it’s a high mark and I have to beat that.”

Dwelling on colonialism and racism out of concern for current political developments, Nielson said he’s been reading to ease his mind, mentioning “Society of the Spectacle,” by Guy Debord, and “Anti-Nietzsche,” by Malcolm Bull.

His reading material could find its way into the band’s next album, tentatively scheduled for next year.

“I’m a bit of an amateur when it comes to this philosophy stuff, but it does help me a lot — and it has given me ideas,” he said.