The closest MATLAB could come to it is probably the hist3 bivariate histogram function, particularly Histogram Bars Colored According to Height. To get the ‘sunflower plot’ effect, you would add ‘view([0 90])’ to the code in the documentation:
load carbig
X = [MPG,Weight];
hist3(X,[7 7]);
xlabel('MPG'); ylabel('Weight');
set(gcf,'renderer','opengl');
set(get(gca,'child'),'FaceColor','interp','CDataMode','auto');
view([0 90])
You could experiment with the colormap to get the effect you want. (This example uses the default colormap.)
