“We were standing on stage, and they called our names, and we were in shock,” band member Kamalei Kawa’a said Sunday. “All us boys looked at each other. We didn’t really know what to do. It was so unexpected.”

The award wrapped up a whirlwind year for the Maui band that included the release of their debut album and 10 nominations for Hoku award categories that included “Album of the Year,” “Group of the Year” and “Song of the Year.”

“When I first found out how many nominations we got, I was on my way to work, and it brought tears to my eyes,” said Kawa’a, adding that the band was also honored to share the stage with some of the biggest names in Hawaiian music.

“That was kind of the win for me, just being able to be there with all of these people we’ve looked up to from such a young age,” he said. “To win the award, that was the topping on the cake that really took me back.”

The men of Maui group Na Hoa — Halehaku Seabury-Akana (from left), Ikaika Blackburn and Keoni Souza — share a laugh after reeling in the awards for “Group of the Year” and “Hawaiian Album of the Year” at the 42nd Na Hoku Hanohano Awards ceremony Saturday night.

Some of the Maui artists that the men of Na Wai ‘Eha have long admired also brought home Hoku awards, like longtime Maui trio Ekolu, which won the “Reggae Album” category for their release “Ekolu Music 3: For Hawaii,” and Na Hoa, another Maui trio that won “Group of the Year” and “Hawaiian Album of the Year” for their sophomore release, “Aloha from Na Hoa.” The Institute of Hawaiian Music at the University of Hawaii Maui College also won the “Hawaiian EP” category for its album “He Lani Ko Luna, He Honua Ko Lalo.”

Ikaika Blackburn, a member of Na Hoa alongside Keoni Souza and Halehaku Seabury-Akana, said that the two awards the band earned meant a lot.

“We share Hawaiian music; that’s what we do, and so for us to win the ‘Hawaiian Album of the Year’ award definitely means a lot for us,” Blackburn said. “This year especially, it was just a lot of very talented groups. . . . It was truly an honor to be among the best and take home the awards.”

Blackburn said the band’s sophomore album was “more relaxed” than the first and allowed them to showcase each member of the group a little more, as well as “share what our mentors have shared with us.” The men of Na Hoa, who won several honors that included “Most Promising Artist” at the 2013 Hoku awards, see something of themselves in the up-and-coming musicians of Na Wai ‘Eha.

“I’m really looking forward to what they’re going to put out in the future years to come because they are a talented bunch of boys,” Blackburn said. “We see a lot of ourselves in them. They’re young, they’re hungry, they’re talented, good looking.”

Na Wai ‘Eha draws its name from the four great waters of Waikapu, Wailuku, Waiehu and Waihee that flow from the West Maui Mountains, an area where the band members all grew up. The band consists of two sets of brothers — Kalanikini and Kahikina Juan, and Kamalei and Kamaehu Kawa’a. While the boys grew up in the same areas and played in the same streams, their connection goes back much further. The Kawa’a brothers’ mom, Luana, used to dance hula as a little girl for the Juan brothers’ grandmother, Aunty Nina Maxwell.

“The relationship with our families started there,” Kamalei Kawa’a said. “Now 20-plus years later, to be here in a group with Aunty Nina’s grandsons and knowing that our families go back so far, for us it feels like it just comes around full circle, and it feels like it was meant to be.”

However, the boys didn’t start playing together until about two years ago, when their simple backyard jam sessions morphed into graduation and baby party gigs and the eventual inspiration to record an album.

Na Wai ‘Eha’s self-titled debut album includes nine original songs and three covers that pay tribute to their families, their musical inspirations and Ke Akua, said Kamalei Kawa’a, who wrote three songs for the people who mean the most to him — his parents, his fiancee and his kumu hula, ‘Iliahi and Haunani Paredes.

“My brother wrote a song for his wife,” he added. “Greg (Kahikina) wrote a song for the family home in Olowalu, and Ed (Kalanikini) for the family home in Wailuku. This whole album was really surrounded around our family and musical inspirations.”

The song that the band performed at the Hoku awards ceremony alongside Aunty Robi Kahakalau and Brickwood Galuteria was “Na Wai Kaulana,” a song that speaks to the beauty of the island of Maui and pays special tribute to each of the four rivers that give the band its name. It’s also dedicated to “one of our biggest inspirations, the Ho’opi’i brothers.”

“It’s our hope that every time we do that song, people will remember Uncle Richard and Uncle Sol,” Kawa’a said.

Richard Ho’opi’i died in March 2018 at the age of 76 in his Kahakuloa home.

Kawa’a added that the band’s name is not just a tribute to their homes but a nod to the fight to restore mauka-to-makai stream flows across Maui after decades of diversions. The streams that are being restored and flowing naturally now are thanks to “our people not giving up and continuously pushing that issue,” he said.

“Seeing them flowing beautifully and constantly is such a beautiful thing,” he said. “But there’s a lot more battles to be fought, a lot more water to be returned to our people.”

And, like the streams of Maui, Na Wai ‘Eha is looking toward a promising future. Kawa’a said he’s not sure what’s in store for the band, but that they planned to release another album soon.

* Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.