Success has a way of polishing out rough edges, of dulling eccentricities. It is hard work, and it requires a commitment to, and belief in, consistency. On an arena tour, it demands a certain sameness — the version delivered each night should be uniform, whether in Helsinki or Omaha.

Lorde does this of course. The show she brought to the Barclays Center on Wednesday night was structurally not much different from those on the rest of her “Melodrama” world tour.

But it’s the ways Lorde veers from script that are the most intriguing — not wholesale disruptions so much as little ripples that draw attention to the planned-out pageantry without diminishing its value. She performs with a heavy sprinkling of wonder that’s ordinarily ground down by the time someone is popular enough to play a room of this size. She calls attention to the light absurdity of success of this scale while also inhabiting it confidently.