Ms. Lovelis is 19, and most of this album is devoted to shaking off the machinations of teenage boys, and in some cases, seeking the approval of men who might know more (but who most likely don’t). “Now I’m out here wearing something low-cut/’bout to get attention from a grown-up,” she sings on the gloriously sinister “Guys My Age.”

Image Hey Violet’s “From the Outside” is one of this year’s best and most provocative pop albums.

Ms. Lovelis writes and sings with a degree of frankness that’s uncommon in recent generations of female pop singers. Sexual agency runs throughout this album, on those songs and also “Unholy,” “Like Lovers Do” and “Brand New Moves,” which has flickers of the awkward dance-rock of the early 1980s. On the album closer, “This Is Me Breaking Up With You,” a jumpy Ramones homage, she screams, “I’m young and I wanna try someone new!”

Almost every song here arrives at a slightly different musical angle. “Break Your Heart” could be a Chainsmokers arena, E.D.M. anthem, and “All We Ever Wanted” sounds indebted to Fergie. That they all cohere is because of Ms. Lovelis’s convincing voice, and the chipper tautness of the rest of the band: Casey Moreta on guitar, Miranda Miller on keys, Iain Shipp on bass and Nia Lovelis, Rena’s sister, on drums.

The album is also expertly produced by Julian Bunetta, best known for his work with One Direction, which also nodded at various genres without drowning that group in any particular one. (Hey Violet’s prior incarnation was called Cherri Bomb, and it released one uncommitted hard-rock album on Hollywood Records.)

On “O.D.D.,” he strips the band down to an acoustic core and plants Rena Lovelis in Dido territory for the album’s most affecting and most inward-looking song: “I’m the girl in the back of the class/blank stare, don’t care, don’t ask.” But Ms. Lovelis’s version of outsiderdom is, in the main, decidedly optimistic. She is ruthless in her takedowns, and has a keen eye for how young men try to invent themselves, and fall short. On one song, with a dismissive title that can’t be printed here, she provides a road map for how to unmask a pretty boy’s true character:

There’s this cute guy down my street

I always wanted to meet

So I went creeping around on his socials

In all the selfies he takes

His head is tilted the same way

And his favorite hashtag is beastmode

Here, Ms. Lovelis is gleeful, using her immaturity against his. It’s a theme that appears often on a recent album by another female-fronted act, “Bop City 2: TerroRising” by Terror Jr, which feels like an irresponsible older sister to Hey Violet’s “From the Outside.”