To that end, Mercury is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and an Equality Champion for the United Nations; she has also been known to cross swords with the political and religious right over their policies. In 2018 she helped spearhead a social media campaign, #EleNao (#NotHim), before the election of Brazil’s extreme right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro. Many of his followers boycotted her with their own hashtag, #ElaNao (#NotHer).

Five years earlier, Mercury, who has an ex-husband and two children, came out as a lesbian when she wed Malu Verçosa, a journalist. The couple adopted three children. “I want to help make the love between these two women be seen by everyone as normal,” the singer told the Brazilian magazine Veja, but she chose some daring ways. The cover of her 2016 album, “Vinil Virtual,” is an image her detractors have used against her ever since. Modeled on a famous Rolling Stone cover with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, it shows a nude Mercury wrapped around Verçosa. This year, for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, the couple spoke out for gay rights at the National Congress in Brasília, the country’s capital. They ended with a kiss.

Whatever the fallout, Mercury retains tremendous support; last year an estimated 1.5 million people saw her at Carnaval in São Paulo. Her United States show will scan her whole career, with dancers and musicians from Bahia and elements of “everything that influenced me, that I value,” she said. “I’m translating the culture of my city, the questions of my people. But it’s very joyful, very rhythmic.”

As a child in Salvador, Mercury — born into a middle-class family of seven — was steeped in dance. She learned it from local black schoolchildren; from practitioners of candomblé, the ritualistic Afro-Brazilian religion; and in dance class, which she attended for years. “I wanted to dance with the voice, too,” she said. “I sang samba very young. Fast sambas. I liked the challenge.”