Yes, the Moon is a waxing crescent, but its entirety is faintly visible in full.
It’s known as earthshine and despite all my moongazing over the years, until this evening I never realized that such a phenomenon exists.
The photo—a straightforward digital shot with my Fuji mirrorless—reveals the way the Earth itself is a luminescent celestial body, reflecting the sunlight bouncing off the lit part of the Moon back at the part of it eclipsed by the Earth.
Light, it turns out, can be reflected again and again, many times, illuminating the shadows with the sheer force of physics. It’s the kind of thing that can make science downright spiritual for the symbolically inclined.