The accolades for Yuna — as a musician and as a cultural force — have come from the West as well as the East. This fall, she appears in an ad campaign for Barneys New York, shot by the photographer Bruce Weber.

In Malaysia, where she has won Anugerah Industri Muzik honors — the local equivalent of the Grammys — every year since 2010, Yuna is already one of the country’s biggest stars. In 2011, the news and opinion website Free Malaysia Today ran an article titled “How to spot a hijabster” by the columnist Zaidel Baharuddin, where he described the phenomenon sparked by Yuna as akin to a “feminist awakening,” even as he poked gentle fun at the hijabsters who hung out at Starbucks and the frozen yogurt chain Tutti Frutti.

While hijab fashion emerged first among young Muslims in Europe, Mr. Zaidel reckons it has spread so quickly here as to become a potential cultural export of Malaysia. “This is ours. This could be our K-pop or our Korean drama,” he said in an interview.

On a recent trip back to Kuala Lumpur for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, Yuna performed at an MTV concert at a giant water park before an audience of thousands. Coming onstage after the K-pop band Boys Republic and before the American hip hop artist B.o.B., she appeared, backed by her band, wearing red lipstick, a gold turban — she sometimes swaps her scarf for a turban — and a gauzy white pantsuit that fluttered in the wind.

“Who do you think you are? This love, you’re throwing away,” she sang in the Malay song “Lelaki” or “Men,” her voice sounding a little bit Norah Jones. In the English-language song “Rescue,” she crooned: “She don’t need no rescue, she’s okay.”