along with theme.xml, you need to have below files in your custom theme, you can copy from luma and put into your custom theme and change it
/app/design/frontend/Custom/default/theme.xml
<!--
/**
* Copyright © 2015 Magento. All rights reserved.
* See COPYING.txt for license details.
*/
-->
<theme xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Config/etc/theme.xsd">
<title>Custom Default</title>
<parent>Magento/luma</parent>
<media>
<preview_image>media/preview.jpg</preview_image>
</media>
</theme>
/app/design/frontend/Custom/default/registration.php
<?php
/**
* Copyright © 2015 Magento. All rights reserved.
* See COPYING.txt for license details.
*/
\Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::register(
\Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::THEME,
'frontend/Custom/default',
__DIR__
);
/app/design/frontend/Custom/default/composer.json
{
"name": "magento/theme-frontend-custom-default",
"description": "N/A",
"require": {
"php": "~5.5.0|~5.6.0|~7.0.0",
"magento/theme-frontend-luma": "100.0.*",
"magento/framework": "100.0.*"
},
"type": "magento2-theme",
"version": "100.0.2",
"license": [
"OSL-3.0",
"AFL-3.0"
],
"autoload": {
"files": [
"registration.php"
]
}
}
- along this copy etc, web, i18n and media folder from luma and paste
into you custom theme
- then clear cache and pub static folder
- go to DB browse table called theme in that last entry
will be your custom theme make sure parent id should be id of luma
else delete that row and again open website
Note:- make sure in admin select your custom design and also run
bin\magento setup:static-content:deploy to re-create pub static folder