With “Wildheart,” Miguel claims his own more specific identity: as a California native of mixed ancestry and boundless aspiration, and as a songwriter who finds his entire complicated hometown — Hollywood, beaches, the suburbs, the ghettos — both around and within himself. The music also traverses modern Los Angeles, invoking hard rock, gangsta funk and a whiff of surf-rock along with multiple schools of R&B.

Where modern R&B is a largely electronic domain, on “Wildheart” Miguel often cranks up electric guitars. “I’ve always loved to write on the guitar but never had the confidence to play on my own records. I played more on this album — not that it’s any good, but it’s still me,” Miguel said before the soundcheck over lunch in the Los Angeles beachside neighborhood of Venice, just north of where he lives in Playa del Rey. Casually but sharply dressed in a gray hoodie, a T-shirt, assorted neck chains, black pants and studded boots, he was easygoing, impeccably polite and brimming with energy, always holding the gaze of a conversation partner whether it was an interviewer or the waitress who had met him at a party somewhere along the coast.

“Wildheart” entered the Billboard 200 album chart at No. 2 when it was released on June 29 and has lingered in the Top 10, though it’s not propelled by a hit single. “Coffee,” a romantic morning-after ballad, remains in the bottom half of the Billboard Hot 100.

“It’s definitely a departure from what he’s done before, and it’s very different from what you’re hearing right now on radio,” said Doc Wynter, the senior vice president for urban programming at the iHeartRadio network and the program director of the hip-hop/R&B station Real 92.3 (KRRL-FM) in Los Angeles, which presented one of Miguel’s preview shows here. “He really is a musician, and he’s about whatever his experience is, as opposed to making a record for radio, which I respect. It’s definitely risky, but I think he’s got a lot of confidence.”

Indeed. “None of my singles have ever sounded like anything else that was on the radio, so I’m used to not getting the initial ‘Oh yes!’ right away,” Miguel said. “My music has always been something that just grows on people and stays around. It’s kind of cool, the notion that maybe not everything is so obvious, but there’s something in there that’s real and lasting.”