Darwin Gabriel Núñez Ribeiro was born in Artigas, in northern Uruguay, and was formed at Peñarol, where he made his senior debut in 2017. A serious knee injury interrupted his progress, but he recovered to earn a move to UD Almería in Spain in August 2019 and finished the 2019/20 Segunda División season as one of the division's leading scorers.

Benfica signed him in September 2020 for a fee of around €24 million, then a record outlay for a Portuguese club. His first season was solid rather than spectacular, but in 2021/22 he scored 34 goals in all competitions, including six in the Champions League with braces against Barcelona and Ajax and goals in both legs of the quarter-final against Liverpool.

Those performances prompted Liverpool to sign him on 14 June 2022 in a deal that could reach roughly €100 million, a record sale for Benfica. His departure, alongside that of Everton, obliged Roger Schmidt to rebuild the attack ahead of his first season in charge.