Day and Night Cycle

The Day and Night Cycle is a feature in all animal crossing games that tells time during each day just like the real world, for example, 12 PM is light and 12 AM is dark.

Sunrise and Sunset
In Animal Crossing the sun rises between 5AM to 7AM and sets between 5PM and 7PM, The sun is down all day in the winter solstice and up all day in the summer solstice, Usually it's hard to tell because you cannot see the sun in the game because of it's slight limitation of the camera, Even if you use a camera hack in the game, you still couldn't see it since its celestial body may not be programed in to the game.

Moonrise and Moonset
In Animal Crossing Wild World, City folk, and New Leaf The moon can be seen in the game every day except if it has dense cloud cover or in the summer solstice, The moon can be seen in the GameCube game only during a certain event.

The Moon Rises in Animal Crossing City Folk at about 3:15 PM and sets at about 7:45 AM, However the times the moon becomes visible is at about 3:45PM and goes off the screen at 7:15 AM

During the evening, The moon is at a straight angle until past midnight when the moon gradually tilts, It's highly noticeable at 3 AM during a Quarter Moon.