The north Moluccan cicadabird was formally described in 1861 by the English zoologist George Gray based on a specimen that had been collected on the island of Bacon which lies southwest of Halmahera in Indonesia.

Gray coined the binomial name Campephaga melanotis.

[2] In 1879 the Italian zoologist Tommaso Salvadori coined the replacement name Edolisoma grayi as Gray's name was pre-occupied by Graucalus melanotis that had been introduced by John Gould in 1838.

[3][4][5] Gould's Graucalus melanotis is now considered to be a junior synonym of a subspecies of the black-faced cuckooshrike Coracina novaehollandiae melanops (Latham, 1801).

It was elevated to species status based on differences in plumage and vocalization combined with the results of a molecular genetic study published in 2018.