Nelea Ciobanu-Mărgineanu (born 28 October 1974), known professionally as Nelly Ciobanu (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈneli tʃjoˈbanu]), is a Moldovan singer.

Ciobanu graduated from music college of the city of Tiraspol and later made her debut on stage in 1993, with her brother as part of duo "Master Dinamit".

Ciobanu is a winner of multiple international competitions: in 1998 won second prize at the festival "Yalta - 98" (Ukraine), 1999 "Grand Prix" at the "Discovery" in Bulgaria (for the performance of a song of composer Liviu Stirbu ), the second prize at the festival "Voice of Asia" (Almaty, Kazakhstan), in 2000 - the first prize at the festival "Slavic Bazaar" in Belarus, the bronze medal of "Delphian Games" in Russia, in 2002, the golden prize of the festival "Spring of April" (North Korea), in 2003 - second prize at the festival "New Wave" in Jūrmala, the Grand Prix of K. Shulzhenko contest (Kharkiv, Ukraine), second place in national pre-selection for Eurovision Song Contest 2005, was jury member at "Five Stars.

She has toured with many Russian artists and international stars such as Patricia Kaas and Mike Bolton.

[1] It was announced on 16 January 2012 that Nelly Ciobanu would try to represent Moldova once more, with the song "Turn on the light"