It was one thing for Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, a kid from New Jersey, to have 14,000 friends on MySpace at age 14 and 16,000 subscribers on YouTube at 18. But it’s quite another for Halsey, Ms. Frangipane’s pop-star alter ego, to have taken that innate 21st-century talent for self-presentation — not to mention songwriting — from her bedroom to arena stages in a mere year since signing with a record label.

Instead of a viral flash of Internet lightning, Halsey, unfiltered and fast-talking, has been nurtured as an artist who could harness lasting loyalty online, not just one-off clicks. Now, with her nearly half a million followers on Twitter and more on Instagram contributing to the heavy lifting, the singer and her label — Astralwerks, an electronic imprint under Capitol Music — have set the stage for a potential mainstream breakthrough.

With the release of her first album, “Badlands,” on Aug. 28, Halsey will attempt to translate the secret language she shares with her online followers for a wider audience without losing its essential intimacy. It’s a rare tightrope walk pulled off by other web-driven artists like Lorde and Lana Del Rey.