This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic.

Cristina, a cult singer who brought avant-garde sensibilities to New York’s dance-music nightlife at the turn of the 1980s, died on March 31 in New York. She was 64.

Her daughter, Lucinda Zilkha Francis, said she had been suffering from several autoimmune disorders, including relapsing polychondritis, for approximately two decades. On Friday, her family learned she had tested positive for the coronavirus.

In the fertile anything-goes downtown New York of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Cristina cut a unique figure — a hyperliterary, well-to-do, seen-it-all performer who taunted club music culture with songs that could be read as wry parody or progressive updates.

“My strength is not in my voice, nor do I have sexy ankles,” she told the Boston Globe in 1980. “I have an analytical brain, and maybe that’s a liability in rock n’ roll, but if I play it right, it will translate musical principles into theatrical terms, which is what I have to do anyway, given my lack of technical expertise in music.”