Del Rey finished the recording of her third studio album, Ultraviolence, in March 2014, and by June of the same year she had begun working on a follow-up idea stating that the process was "growing into something I really like.

[3] During the time of the announcement, Del Rey also said that she had written and recorded nine songs that could possibly be featured on the album and stated that she was covering Nina Simone's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood".

[17] The album's production was noted as containing sighs, whispers, subtly layered vocals, melodies that lazily unwind, decaying synths, echoing guitar lines, strings, hazes and restrained drum patterns.

[18] Built over chopped-and-screwed samples, hints of jazz and Morricone-like soundscapes, Honeymoon has been characterized as Del Rey's most sophisticated album.

[17] According to Nick Levine of Time Out, Honeymoon was seen as a departure from the "grungy" tones of Ultraviolence opting for a "glossier" production, which was characterized as containing swirls of cinematic strings, twangy guitars and exquisitely miserable melodies.

Gill continued in-depth to say: Honeymoon finds Del Rey reverting, after the more atomised, individual characters of last year's Ultraviolence, to a composite persona closer to the dissolute subject of her Born to Die debut.

Happy or sad, angry or apologetic, dominant or submissive, it's apparently all the same to Del Rey, who floats through these songs with a weird indifference.

[22] Time called the song "characteristically broody" and "cinematic", and suggested it "leans closer to the sounds of her breakthrough LP Born to Die than the material she cooked up with the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach".

; Hudson stated that the song is built over a synth orchestrations, with flute-like sounds and "crawling" beats that serve as "the sultry backdrop for the vocalist cooing breathily about pink flamingos and creepy, destructive romance".

[27] The song opens with isolated guitar notes plucked and dropped, before moving into the distance as piano chords appear, followed by violins, and Del Rey's vocals.

Throughout the chorus there are brief saxophone sections inserted and David Bowie references with lyrics such as "Ground control to Major Tom/Can you hear me all night long?".

[46] "Art Deco" is a slow jazz-styled ballad with hazy beats and saxophone riffs,[47] the lyrics of the song contain "hollowness and American ennui".

[45] "Salvatore" mixes violins, military drumbeats and verses sung in Italian which have been described as evoking "1940s Italy via Frank Sinatra".

[45][54] The album closes with a cover of Nina Simone's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", which showcase Del Rey's operatic readings of classical '60s Hollywood melodrama and contains organ riffs.

[66] She unveiled the track listing through her main Instagram account on August 20, the day before the record was made available for preorder on the iTunes Store.

[67] Unlike her previous studio albums, which were released in several deluxe versions with extended track listings, Honeymoon is packaged as a single 14-track recording.

The following day, Del Rey released a sampler of Honeymoon, which included the tracks "Terrence Loves You", "Music to Watch Boys To", "Freak", and "High by the Beach".

[75] On September 15, BBC Radio 1 premiered "Salvatore" and briefly interviewed Del Rey for Huw Stephens' (in place of Annie Mac's) Hottest Record In The World show.

[76] Following the release of Honeymoon, Del Rey hosted 3 meet-and-greets in late September at select Urban Outfitters stores to promote the record.

At the review aggregate website Metacritic, it has scored a 78 out of 100, based on 31 critics, becoming Del Rey's most acclaimed album of her career at the time.

[2] The Independent gave Honeymoon four out of five stars, with reviewer Andy Gill writing that the album "finds Del Rey reverting, after the more atomised, individual characters of last year's Ultraviolence, to a composite persona closer to the dissolute subject of her Born to Die debut.

While she's obviously a pop artist, Honeymoon feels as though it belongs to a larger canon of Southern California Gothic albums, and synthesizes ideas she's been vamping on from the beginning into a unified work.

[14] In a four-star review, The Metropolist thought "Del Rey has found a balance in sounds" and praised how the album's production "beautifully harmonises lush strings, muddy baselines and haunting melodies, all blending to create a fluent and ethereal body of work".

[84] The London Evening Standard also praised the album's production, remarking how it "swells in time to the oceans of longing in Del Rey's voice".