This month Mariah Carey released “Caution,” her 15th studio album, and one of her most relaxed in years. She deploys less flamboyant vocal approaches, and works with producers from a wide range of perspectives, including Nineteen85, Blood Orange, DJ Mustard and Skrillex.

The Carey of this album is in transition, a far cry from the singer who arrived in pop so assertively in the early 1990s, and from the one who was stumbling so publicly in the last few years.

This week’s Popcast begins with a discussion about “Caution” and the last decade of Carey’s career, then unfolds into a larger conversation about recent developments in R&B, where a new crop of singers devoted to the genre’s core principles are helping it crawl out from the long shadow of hip-hop.

On this week’s Popcast: