Spirited celebration: Marking Dia de los Muertos — Day of the Dead — in and around L.A.

First things first: Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, which runs Oct. 31 through Nov. 2, has nothing to do with Halloween.

Nada.

“There’s no candy, no trick-or-treating,” said Yolanda Machado, the Latina voice behind the Los Angeles-based website Sassy Mama in LA. She describes the annual...