At one time — 1983, to be exact — Culture Club was the most popular pop band on the planet, with a blend of flamboyant fashion, sweetly sung music, coded sexuality and cutting humor that drew listeners like moths to a flame.

The multiracial English band sold over 50 million albums worldwide, with a trans-Atlantic No. 1 hit in “Karma Chameleon,” from the 1983 album “Colour by Numbers.”

They were the first band since the Beatles to have three songs from their debut album, 1982’s “Kissing to Be Clever,” reach the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, with “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” “Time (Clock of the Heart)” and “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya.”

“Colour by Numbers” went triple platinum in the U.K. and quadruple platinum in the U.S., and has now sold more than 16 million copies; it’s No. 96 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Albums of the ’80s.

Boy George, born George O’Dowd, was key to the band’s popularity, bolstered by the soulful, global rhythms of guitarist-keyboardist Roy Hay, bassist Mikey Craig and drummer Jon Moss. But the relationships within the band were often turbulent, and Culture Club split in 1986.

There was a rough attempt at a reunion in 1999, but in the wake of their massive success, things had gone south for George. He grappled with heroin addiction, he abused cocaine, and his health suffered. In 2006, he notoriously was sentenced to community service in New York City for a false report of burglary, and was also convicted of assaulting a male escort in 2007. But after those well-publicized stumbles, George got clean.

Culture Club reunited in 2014, recording new material and planning worldwide appearances.

After the success of a 2015 North American tour, Culture Club returns back to the scene on their 2016 global tour that includes Hawaii.

Significantly, the band has retained its original lineup, led by the iconic, flamboyant and openly gay frontman.

Culture Club was influenced by New Romanticism, a pop culture movement that dominated the late ’70s to early ’80s and helped pave the way for synthpop and the ubiquity of the synthesizer. It began in the U.K. in nightclubs such as the Blitz, whose patrons, the Blitz Kids, were known for their androgynous, outrageous fashion, wild hair, heavy makeup and frilly shirts in the style and fashion of the English Romantic period.

Boy George worked in the cloakroom of the Blitz and was also the club’s resident DJ. Out at the clubs, he met Hay.

Along with the band’s enormous popularity, the look and sounds heard in the English clubs spread to the U.S. and other parts of the world.

Across the globe and oceans away, the New Romantic movement made its way to the Hawaii nightlife scene and influenced club kids who frequented a particular nightclub in Waikiki called 3D.

Gary Owens, now known as DJ Gary O, was a curious young man in 1981 when he met the club DJ known as “Crazy George” who exposed him to music and experiences he will never forgot. “He was buying all the latest stuff coming out of England. He had all the 12-inch singles — first time I’d ever seen them, he had 12-inch singles of everything! Bands like Culture Club, The Human League,” Owens recalls.

Similar to the Blitz, 3D was a place to socialize and meet new friends who wandered in dressed in big hats, romantic, glamorous outfits and pirate-inspired attires resembling the influential singers of the decade. It was a place to listen to new, imported music that couldn’t be heard on the radio.

“People just started coming out of nowhere,” Owens recalls. “It was like a big dysfunctional family that hung out there, punk rockers on one side and mods on the other.” The club kids found a connection with one another, sharing the same interests and passions.

It wasn’t just the fashion or the scene, Owens believes. He says the ’80s was also a decade of creativity, when individual expression and musical invention were on the rise.

“It’s when the music had real emotion. The music back then was real,” he said, convincingly.

The ’80s clubgoers were a visual group, says DJ Victor Sam, who worked at a Waikiki nightclub during those years. Music videos, fueled by the birth of MTV in 1981, were a source of information on trends in fashion and music.

Synthpop pioneers such as Culture Club introduced a new beat and style on dance floors and in club-kid tribes around the world.

Hay, who acknowledged that all the band members had their hurdles after Culture Club fell apart, said there’s a wide desire now to revive the better music of the ’80s.

The decade became “unfashionable for a while; people were laughing at it and the hairstyle,” Hay said. “But over time, people realized there was damn good music being made — and some of the artists were quite worthwhile, including ourselves.”

It was a time of celebration that helped pave the way for many artists who came after.

“People want to see what it was all about,” he said.

Another key to Culture Club’s revived popularity, said Hay, is the soulful, timeless but eclectic sound the band cultivated.

From a songwriting point of view, Culture Club doesn’t even necessarily have an ’80s sound, Hay argues.

“If Bruno Mars recorded ‘Miss Me Blind’ tomorrow, it would be a hit,” the keyboardist said.

Boy George is a great lyricist, Hay said, who writes most of the songs. But Hay attributes the overall success of Culture Club to the entire band, with its combination of great music, a strong image and simple luck.

“The stars have to be aligned for a band to hit like that. If you hit the right look with the right music with the right time, you can really affect people, you can have an influence on society,” he said.

According to Hay, all of the bandmates have grown up, collectively, learning from past experiences. They’ve learned to be grateful and to appreciate each other, while recognizing the influence they continue to have on others.

“You don’t realize what’s happening when you’re in the insanity of being in a band in your 20s,” he said. “Everything is so important; it’s so dramatic when you’re going through it all.”

These days, it’s all about having fun, playing music and making people happy.

“It doesn’t have to be crazy,” Hay said, although he acknowledges, “George still likes to get wrapped up in the drama of it all.”

“He’s a drama queen,” Hay said playfully. “George loves to play, he loves to perform, he loves being on stage, he loves to sing.”