After three complementary albums with a consistent sound, “Honey” is a shift — both a glance back at the history of pop and a slingshot into the future.

At what point should pop careers end, I asked Robyn at the museum. “I think you either end it, or you keep evolving,” she said. “You might not want to evolve in the public eye. But I think that’s what it takes.” She said she was choosing to evolve.

IN THE END, Robyn couldn’t have called the new album anything but “Honey.” You may have heard the name of that song as early as 2017, when it underscored a scene on “Girls.” The show’s creator and star, Ms. Dunham, had reached out to see if Robyn would contribute music to the final season; Robyn sent her options, and an early, busier, techno-ier version of “Honey” was the winner. Fans seized on the song immediately and started demanding that Robyn finish it: Variations on #ReleaseHoneyDammit became a running online plea and gag.

Robyn saw the messages. But she was far from done with “Honey.” The track became a white whale for her: She just couldn’t put it down.

Though she’s written many songs that stand at the crossroads of pop and club music, Robyn knew where she wanted “Honey” to be planted. “It’s not produced or written as a normal pop song,” she said. “It is totally based on this idea of club music.” Both genres come with their own mode of listening, she argued. “When you’re listening to club music, there’s no reward,” she said. “The reward isn’t, ‘Oh, here’s the chorus, here’s the lyric that makes sense.’ You have to enjoy what it is. You have to enjoy that there’s no conclusion.”

“Club music taught me so much about myself,” she added. “Having patience, or appreciating a different type of way of taking in life. That to me is like, what ‘Off the Wall’ is. Or ‘I Feel Love’ or ‘Rock Your Baby’ with George McCrae.” (She later added Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to the list.) “It’s a hypnotic thing. Time stops, and I don’t even think about where I am when I hear music like that. That’s the high that I want,” she said, and laughed heartily. “That’s what I need.”