Review: Another viral pop star, Melanie Martinez, packs another ecstatic Twin Cities arena

There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks in the conventional music industry about arena concerts fading in popularity, evidenced by poor-selling tours by the Black Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake and others.

Tuesday night’s Melanie Martinez show at Target Center, however, was the third Twin Cities concert in five days to suggest that the conventional music industry just might not be paying attention to the right artists.

Like fellow viral pop sensation Noah Kahan — who played two sold-out concerts at Xcel Energy Center last weekend — Martinez has gained fame without a lot of radio play or traditional media exposure. She did get her first break as a contestant on NBC’s “The Voice,” but that was a decade ago and didn’t last long.

And yet here was Martinez playing to a sold-out and highly reverential crowd at a local arena filled with young fans — many of whom arrived wearing Japanese Lolita-style outfits and fuzzy accessories that you might also see at a Comic Con.

The cuteness extended to the stage, too. Dancers in furry costumes and babydoll dresses scurried about in front of the type of fantastical video animation that has helped the New York singer garner big clicks via YouTube, TikTok and other streaming platforms.

Following a no-frills but all-in opening set by Chicago power-pop band Beach Bunny, Martinez’s trippy visual elements took over the concert. At times, the optical stuff even seemed a bit overbearing compared with the aural output.

Sporting her trademark Cruella De Vil-inspired bicolor bangs, Martinez, 29, spent the first half-hour of her two-hour set performing at the back of the stage so she could interact with various images on the video backdrop. It was quite an impersonal start. She didn’t strut up to the front until the seventh song, “Pity Party,” a play on the Lesley Gore hit “It’s My Party” that had the 14,000 or so fans crying in delight.

Dubbed the Trilogy Tour, Martinez’s current trek is split up into three sets that separately spotlight her three albums. “Pity Party” was part of the opening set based on her debut album, 2015′s “Cry Baby.” This premise could have easily backfired into a lackluster final third of the show, since fans generally favor earlier material.

However, Martinez pulled off some of her most dazzling visual stunts and choreography during the final set from last year’s LP, “Portals.” She wore the weird, multi-eyed prosthetic mask from the album artwork for the whole set — sort of a Creature from the Pink Lagoon look. Meanwhile, the fans seemed just as happy singing along to “Void,” “The Contortionist” and other new songs as they did to “Cry Baby” and “Dollhouse” early in the show.

Musically, Martinez skews toward the downbeat but dramatic electro-orchestral pop of Lana Del Rey and Mitski, with a little added trip-hoppiness. She showed nowhere near the convincingly dramatic voice of those artists in concert, though.

Many times, her singing was buried under a blanket of electronic vocal effects. She also sometimes crossed over into cutesy delivery (like the schoolhouse drama “Show & Tell”) or just sounded too flatly morose (”The Principal”).

Whenever the music started leaning too drab, though, Martinez usually pulled out some kind of physical or visual stunt to spark the crowd. “Carousel” literally fired up the stage with a flaming merry-go-round. “Show & Tell” had her tied to giant puppet strings dangling from the rafters. “High School Sweethearts” featured neon candy hearts and a well-aimed Cupid’s arrow that knocked Martinez to the ground.

The audience seemed floored by all of it. And in this day and age, who’s to argue with a sold-out crowd?