The seamlessness of “Clarity” — which consists of several songs that have been released as singles since April, along with a handful of new ones — comes from the production, which is glossy and unrelentingly potent, a series of brainy genre mishmashes that communicate deep fluency in pop micro-histories.

Petras works closely with Dr. Luke, the songwriter and producer who helped build the careers of Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson and Kesha. In 2014, Kesha accused him of sexual and verbal abuse in a lawsuit in which she asked to be released from her contract with his label. Dr. Luke countersued for defamation and breach of contract. In 2016, a judge in New York rejected Kesha’s claims; Dr. Luke’s suit is ongoing.

Working with Dr. Luke has clouded Petras’s career thus far. In interviews, she’s described the experience positively. Last year, she told NME, “I would like my fans to know that I wouldn’t work with somebody I believe to be an abuser of women.” She then apologized after some suggested she was invalidating Kesha’s accusations: “While I’ve been open and honest about my positive experience with Dr. Luke, that does not negate or dismiss the experience of others or suggest that multiple experiences cannot exist at once.”

Image “Clarity” features work by Dr. Luke, the pop hitmaker who has been engaged in an ongoing legal battle with Kesha. Credit...

If the atelier of the Swedish producer and songwriter Max Martin focuses on sincere pop centrism, Dr. Luke’s hit factory suggests pop refracted in a fun house mirror: quirky and kaleidoscopic, a seamless picture made up of unlikely fragments. Along with Petras, Dr. Luke has a songwriting credit on each song on “Clarity.” He does not receive a formal production credit on the album. Each song includes a production credit for an entity called Made in China, which has been presumed to be an alias for Dr. Luke. Linda Carbone, a publicist who represents Petras and Dr. Luke, said that Made in China is a producing alias of Clint Gibbs, who has been the chief studio engineer for Dr. Luke.

Petras is a fitting vocalist for the Dr. Luke framework: She sings with attitude, and sometimes with comedy. Some of the most vivid juxtapositions on “Clarity” are when she sings about tragic things with glee, or vice versa. And when the album suffers toward the end, as on the dreamy praise song “Shinin’,” it’s because there’s no tension between the synthetic and the sincere.