In ancient Japan, Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a one-eyed young boy who lives with his ill mother, Sariatu (Charlize Theron), in a cave atop a mountain. Every day he tells stories to village's locals by magically manipulating origami that moves under music played from Kubo'sshamisen. He tells the tale of a samurai warrior named Hanzo who is Kubo's missing father. When the town bell chimes signaling sunset, Kubo returns to his mother, as she explicitly warns him to not stay outside after dark or her sisters (Rooney Mara) and his grandfather the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes) will come to take his remaining eye (after they took his other eye when he was a baby).
One day, Kubo learns of an Obon festival which has a ceremony where family members communicate with deceased loved ones. He arrives at a cemetery and tries to speak to Hanzo, but leaves in anger when his father does not respond. As Kubo stays out after sundown, Sariatu's Sisters find him and attack. His mother arrives to fend them off. She sends Kubo away using her magic, telling him to find his father's magic armor. He takes a lock of her hair before she charges at her Sisters.
Kubo wakes up and meets Monkey (Charlize Theron), his little wooden snow monkey charm that was brought to life by his mother's magic. She informs him that his mother is dead, his village is destroyed, and he must move on to survive. The next morning, Monkey wakes Kubo and points out "Little Hanzo", one of Kubo's origami that design after his father and that folded himself and came to life at night. Little Hanzo shows Kubo and Monkey the way to pieces of a magic armor, where they are greeted by Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), an amnesiac samurai who was cursed to take the form of a beetle and claims to have been Hanzo's apprentice. He joins them on their quest when he finds out that Kubo is Hanzo's son. The Sisters discover Kubo is looking for his father's armor, and split up to find him.
Little Hanzo leads them to an underground cave known as the "Hall of Bones" where they find the "Sword Unbreakable" on the skull of a giant skeleton. The skeleton attacks them as they try to reclaim the Sword, but they defeat it and escape. Kubo uses his magic to create a boat out of fallen leaves, and they set sail across the "Long Lake" and arrive floating over the "Breastplate Impenetrable". The Breastplate lies below the lake in the "Garden of Eyes", where intruders are entranced and paralyzed by a giant monster's giant eyes by showing secrets before they are eaten by it. Beetle and Kubo dive in to retrieve the Breastplate. One of the Sisters appears and attacks Monkey. Monkey manages to defeat her, but is badly wounded in the process. Kubo recovers the Breastplate, but is immediately entranced by one of the eyes. In his entranced state, he has a revelation: Monkey is in fact his mother, her spirit reincarnated into physical form. Beetle rescues Kubo and the dilapidated boat is restored with Kubo and Monkey's own magic.
On a nearby island, the trio rest in a cave as Monkey explains with leaves, twigs, and a flower by using Kubo's shamisen that before she met Hanzo, she and her Sisters were sent to kill him. Instead, she fell in love with him, and gave birth to Kubo. Her Sisters and Kubo's grandfather felt betrayed and have since branded her as an enemy. Kubo has a dream in which he is greeted by Raiden (Ralph Fiennes), a blind old man spirit who shows him where to find the "Helmet Invulnerable", the final piece of armor. They head to his father's damaged fortress to claim the armor, but are ambushed by the remaining Sister who reveals that Beetle is in fact Kubo's father, Hanzo, whom they had cursed as retribution for "taking" their sister from them. Beetle is killed, and Monkey sacrifices herself to allow Kubo to obtain his shamisen and kill her Sister with it, breaking every string but one in the process. After Kubo learns that his village's bell is the Helmet, with Little Hanzo's help, he breaks the last string on his shamisen and uses his magic to fly back to his village.
After reclaiming the Helmet, he is greeted by Raiden, who is revealed to be his grandfather, the Moon King. He wants to take Kubo's other eye in order to join his "family" and make him immortal like him. Kubo refuses and an angered Raiden transforms into a monstrous dragon-like creature known as the "Moon Beast" and attacks. Despite landing several blows, Kubo is beaten and thrown into the village cemetery where the Moon Beast corners both him and the villagers. Kubo sheds the armor and re-strings his shamisen, using his mother's hair, his father's bowstring, and a strand of his own hair. He uses its magic to recruit the spirits of the deceased villagers, showing to his grandfather that memories are the strongest magic of all and can never be destroyed. Kubo uses the spirits to shield himself and the villagers from the Moon Beast and then engulfs him in their magic. The Moon King is defeated and becomes mortal, and in his human form has no recollection of who or what he was. The villagers show compassion and forgiveness and tell him that he was a man of many positive traits, thus convincing him that he was a good man.
At the end, Kubo is able to speak with his parents whose spirits appear beside him, as he sets their lanterns afloat across a lake, all the while seeing the deceased villagers' other lanterns transform into golden herons and flying to the spirit world into the sky.
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