[2] Although they had been playing since 1989 under the name of "Morbid God",[4] the band became Moonspell in 1992, shortly after they released the promo track "Serpent Angel".

At the time of the name change, the band's line-up was Fernando Ribeiro (Langsuyar) on vocals, João Pedro "Ares" Escoval (Tetragrammaton) on bass, Duarte Picoto (Mantus) and Luís Lamelas (Malah) on the guitars, and Miguel "Mike" Gaspar (Nisroth) on the drums.

On 24 February 1993, the band released their demo Anno Satanæ, which contained three songs accompanied by an intro and an outro.

The demo circulated around the black metal scene and eventually attracted the interest of independent label Adipocere Records, which signed the band for a mini-album.

In July, Moonspell performed three shows in the United Kingdom, their first ones outside Portugal, and in September, the band embarked on a European tour, supporting Morbid Angel.

Duarte Picoto told the band he couldn't go on the European tour as he was having personal issues of his own, but they went on anyway, as they felt it was too big of an opportunity to throw away, and played as a five-piece.

[1] On 7 February 1997, after serious artistic and personal conflicts with the rest of the band, bass player Ares was fired and was replaced by Sérgio Crestana.

Featuring "down-tuned guitar riffs, eerie synthesizer passages",[5] the album was mainly composed by guitarist/keyboard player Pedro Paixão and was not very well received by metal critics.

The album reached 79th on German charts[1] and special editions included covers of Madredeus, Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr. Crowley" and Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

The band toured extensively around the world, playing at Rock in Rio Lisbon in 2004, a concert that brought them to more mainstream attention in Portugal.

During 2003 the band recorded a cover of the jazz standard "I'll See You in My Dreams" for the soundtrack of the Portuguese short zombie horror film of the same name.

The lead single off the album, Scorpion Flower, features Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering, now Agua De Annique).

[11] In July 2010 it was reported that the Portuguese Postal Service would release "a collection of stamps that represent the most significant rock moments and records from Portugal," which included Moonspell's first album, Wolfheart.

[12] In July 2010, vocalist Fernando Ribeiro revealed the band was working on a new album, which he described as "the most exciting, sexiest, darkest, heaviest and catchiest stuff we've written in ages!".

[14] The band's press release cited Bathory, King Diamond, Onslaught, early Metallica, Testament, and Artillery as influences for Alpha Noir, which was described as "an incendiary album".

[14] Alpha Noir and Omega White were both produced and mixed by Tue Madsen, who had previously worked on the band's Under Satanæ and Night Eternal records.

[15] On 3 July 2020, Moonspell announced that Mike Gaspar, the original drummer, had left the band, and that he would be replaced by Hugo Ribeiro.