No pop career should ever have a terrorist attack as a milestone. The bombing right after Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, England, in May 2017 is one inevitable backdrop to her fourth studio album, “Sweetener.” Released on Aug. 17, the album zoomed to No. 1.

“Sweetener” begins with the brief, mournful, a cappella “Raindrops (An Angel Cried)”: a verse of the Four Seasons song “An Angel Cried.” And it ends with vocal harmonies in “Get Well Soon,” a compendium of sympathy and 21st-century advice — “Unfollow fear and just say you are blocked” — that also promises, “I’ll be right there just to hug you.” The length of the track, including a long silence at the end, is 5:22, memorializing the day of the attack.

But Ms. Grande, 25, won’t let sorrow take over her pop-star narrative. Album by album, she has constructed a persona of cheerful female empowerment. She’s not a woman battling her way forward. She’s simply commandeering what she has always deserved and fully expects, including authority, devotion and pleasure.