Yet more proof of the old adage that it’s fine to go on a TV talent show as long as you don’t win, New York’s Melanie Martinez is suffering no ill effects from reaching the final six on America’s version of The Voice in 2012.
The singer sold out a London gig at Heaven this week, and has another bigger one coming up next month at the Forum.
Her debut album, Cry Baby, may only have spent one week at number 32 in our charts last year, but looking at her online numbers, her striking style is obviously connecting.
With hair in two colours, babydoll outfits and dark lyrics squatting on top of superficially saccharine fairground music, she’s far from the first to realise that kids’ stuff can be pretty creepy.
Her song Carousel provided the theme music for the US miniseries American Horror Story: Freak Show, while Pity Party lifts the chorus from Lesley Gore’s 1963 hit It’s My Party and turns it nasty. All in all she comes over like Lana Del Rey in a Tim Burton movie or a clown with a knife, irritating and unsettling in equal measure.
May 7, O2 Forum Kentish Town, NW5 (0844 847 2405, o2forumkentishtown.co.uk)