Lana Del Rey

Her new album is entitled “Honeymoon,” but for Lana Del Rey such romantic sojourns are bleak in the way of classic film noir. In her highly anticipated fourth album released Friday, Del Rey returns to the somber, cinematic sound that has made her among the most unique and complicated recent pop sensations.

At age 30, the artist born as Elizabeth Woolridge Grant combines the glamor of a black-and-white-era movie star with the aura of a top model, yet with a constantly perceptible vulnerability.

Her lyrical voice and troubled persona evoke the ghosts of singing greats such as Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, whom she both references on the new album including with a cover of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” which was popularized by Simone.

The album is haunted by allusions to past violence at the hands of men, a frequent theme for Del Rey that has contributed to her image as an anti-feminist.

“We both know the history of violence that surrounds you / But I’m not scared; there’s nothing to lose now that I’ve found you,” she sings on the title track, which is driven by the dark strings of a tragic film.

On “The Blackest Day,” Del Rey sings of failed love as a “half-life in lost dreams.”

“Ever since my baby went away / It’s been the blackest day / All I hear is Billie Holiday / It’s all that I play,” she sings.