Black Sunday

The cover of Black Sunday is a horror scene: a hill built from skulls and graves under the silhouette of a spooky tree, with the title in gothic lettering. The original Ruffhouse and Columbia gatefold credits art direction and the logo to Pawn Shop Press, the design concept and design to Dante Ariola and Jay Papke, and photography to Anthony Artiaga. The vinyl came with printed black and white inner sleeves.

The image is a visual pun on the group's name. A lone tree on a hill of bones is a literal, gothic Cypress Hill, named after Cypress Avenue in South Gate, recast as a graveyard. It extends the morbid humour of their debut, whose songs were full of shootings and threats, and matches the album's darker sound, from the menace of "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That" to the stoned swagger of "Insane in the Brain". The gothic type and graveyard tone owe more to horror films and metal sleeves than to rap tradition, which suited a group that was already crossing into rock audiences.

Black Sunday entered the Billboard 200 at number one, and its skull-hill imagery became part of the band's lasting visual identity. Thirty years on, the cover was still recognisable enough for Cypress Hill to build a graphic novel and anniversary concerts around the album's title. The album was released on 20 July 1993.