I don't know what to make of the palettes, but more on that below.
I love the level design (or what you can see of it in the screenshots) - a substantial cloud part is really imaginative for a second level. Can't wait to see how you're going to tie that up together for the two parts to make sense in one level (I hope its not just a hop to the sky at some point!)
I've also come to love the gold pipe... except, if possible in your pipe designs, can you fix that one-pixel line in the middle which is much brighter than everything else? I know SMAS does it the same way, and I know that others are using the same pipes, but its really off-putting!
I also love the HUD. The best thing about it is how simple it is to read - everything is horizontal. I'd prefer it if you took out the 'LAA' but that's your call.
Now for your palettes. I think the idea of a sunset level is nice, but the clouds are just weird (if its a cloudy sunset, its unlikely the sky would be orange). Then, if later in the level you presumably go up in the sky, at sunsset its unlikely you'd see deep lilac clouds.
I would make the cloud palettes a little less saturated and darken the sunset palette a little.
On the whole, this looks like it could be a pretty special hack. Hope to see more soon!