She had previously been a member of Lakoda Rayne, a girl group assembled by Paula Abdul during the first season of The X Factor.

[1] She is of English, French, Irish, and Mexican descent; her surname means "mountain pass" and comes from her paternal great-grandparents, who were from Chihuahua.

She recorded the vocals to Houston's "Magic of a Friend" which was on Disney's Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure soundtrack in 2009.

After casting her and learning of her musical talent, series creator Adam F. Goldberg wrote several episodes where Erica sings and plays guitar.

Series co-star AJ Michalka is also a recording artist, and the two sang together on three of the tracks of The Goldbergs MixTape, released in 2017.

Orrantia had a leading role in the Christian drama film God's Not Dead 2 in 2016,[5][6] which was a commercial success but received overwhelmingly negative reviews.

Orrantia began dating actor Greg Furman in 2019, after they were introduced to each other by an undisclosed person who also worked on The Goldbergs.