Pop shows: Stephin Merritt, Atmosphere, and Emily Hearn

The Stephin Merritt Songbook is a many-splendored thing. It includes 10 albums with the Magnetic Fields (one of which, 69 Love Songs, is a triple set); two albums with the 6ths; three sound tracks and a miscellaneous collection under Merritt's own name; an album and several EPs as the Gothic Archies; and three albums with the Future Bible Heroes.

So Merritt will have plenty of witty, well-crafted songs to choose from when he draws up a set list for Saturday night's seated show at Union Transfer. But there's a catch: Merritt likes to create projects with clearly defined constraints (some might call them gimmicks). This tour, which opens here, has Merritt accompanied by Magnetic Fields cellist Sam Davol and a set list of 26 songs performed alphabetically.

- Steve Klinge

Atmosphere's Sean Daley and Anthony Davis (Slug and Ant, respectively) have been hustling since the memorable release of Overcast! in 1997. In the process, the Minneapolis natives founded the Rhymesayers label, a bastion of indie hip-hop with emcees such as Brother Ali, MF Doom, and Aesop Rock on the roster.

On their seventh studio LP, 2014's Southsiders, the duo dug deep as usual but replaced braggadocious tales of female conquests with tracks about mortality and parenthood. Daley's a 42-year-old father of three now. He's writing dope songs with fully fleshed-out characters, as on the ominous but awesome opener, "Camera Thief." He's also distilling hip-hop history with "Kanye West," in which he asks audiences to "put your hands in the air like you really do care."

True road warriors, Atmosphere regularly employ synths, guitars, and live beatboxing. They have cultivated a ravenous fanbase.

- Bill Chenevert

Singer-songwriter pop has its share of sweethearts, women whose emotional intensity is often blunted by cottony arrangements and overly dewy voices. Blah.

But that's not Emily Hearn. Her brand-new single - the haunted ballad "Volcano" - is fleecy yet so vulnerable you'll cry amid her sharp-edged lyrics and punchy, poignant vocals. The Athens, Ga., native wears her humor and heartache on her dolman sleeves on albums such as Red Balloon and Hourglass. There may be a pleading quality in much of her work (as in "Cutting Ties" that seems to be about the end of a friendship), but don't let the teardrops fool you: She's playing rope-a-dope with your heart.

- A.D. Amorosi