The brief book of Joel, containing only three chapters, covers several topics of great importance, though chapter two will be the focus here. Portions of this very chapter are quoted by the book of Acts (2:16-21) to hold up events concerning the early church as the fulfillment of particular Old Testament prophecies, with an emphasis in the quoted verses on Yahweh's egalitarian approach to Jews and Gentiles, men and women, and the old and the young, as well as the divine being pouring out his Spirit on people from all of these categories (Joel 2:28-29). The immediate context confirms this outpouring is supposed to occur before the "great and dreadful" day of the Lord because it is described before Joel mentions the the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood (2:31), which is itself said to occur before the day of the Lord.
In fact, like God pouring out his Spirit on a diverse set of people, the prophecy about the sun and moon does not go unreferenced in the New Testament. Revelation 6 does describe celestial abnormalities that perfectly align with the words of Joel 2:31. While Acts cites Joel 2 by more directly paraphrasing the wording and attributing it to the prophet Joel, Revelation simply declares that the sun will turn or at least appear to be black and the moon will look as red as blood after the opening of the sixth seal. The parallels between Joel and Revelation are still stark without any sort of explicit paraphrasing or citation:
Joel 2:30-31—"I will show wonders in the heavens and on earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."
Revelation 6:12-13—"I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind."
Joel certainly provides little clarification about what precisely is meant by the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood, without specifying anything about the timing of these phenomena other than that they will occur at some future point before the "great and dreadful day of the Lord." Revelation brings up the sun and moon appearing to have a different color as connected with a specific seal judgment in the context of a particular sequence. However, the way Revelation describes the sun and moon alludes to the exact eschatological things mentioned in Joel 2:31. Peter says in Acts 2 that at least part of the prophecies in Joel 2 were fulfilled on Pentecost during the time of the early church, and though he mentions the part about the sun and moon in Acts 2:20, he does not claim these things have transpired yet.
Revelation clarifies more about how these specific portions of the prophecy are to be brought about. And alongside the unusual appearance of the sun and moon, there is said to be a terrible earthquake once the sixth seal opens, one that Revelation 6:14-17 seems to equate with that of Isaiah 2:10-21, another eschatological passage. But I am focusing on a very specific connection between Joel and Revelation about the sun and moon; Revelation alludes to a multitude of Old Testament segments, far more than would fall into the scope of this post!
Since Joel says that the sun and moon change color (or appear to have their color changed) before the day of the Lord, it is pertinent that Revelation uses language about people experiencing the earthquake referring to the "day" (Revelation 6:16-17) of the wrath of God and the Lamb only after the sun appears black and the moon red. Even aside from strict chronology, the day of the Lord spoken of throughout the Bible is not necessarily a single day, and Revelation definitively presents the content of Joel's prophecy about the sun and moon as eschatological. Far from irrelevant to the New Testament, Joel 2 is a pivotal chapter from the minor prophets for multiple reasons, eschatology included.
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