DANCING IN THE DARK

Marissa Nadler isn't a superstar. In fact, she tends to shy away from whatever bit of the limelight comes her away. But after a string of critically lauded albums - most recently the criminally overlooked Little Hells - she's had the fortune of moving on to a nicer, larger tier of American venues.

However, around the time of the March release of Little Hells, Nadler was performing anonymously at open mic nights in Boston coffee houses - not for money, but for humility.

"It's this interesting thing that I did recently, and everyone talked through me," Nadler said. "I can't belt it out like Janis Joplin, and I don't have a big voice. I have a little voice, in a lot of ways."

The idea, Nadler said, was not pure masochism. She wanted to be able to fully appreciate playing those bigger venues and "remember that, oh, they don't think that I'm anything special."

When she comes to Arlington's Iota Club and Café Sunday to open for the Handsome Family, Nadler won't have the cloak of anonymity to hide behind. What the Boston songstress does have going for her, though, is an already bustling songbook, covering the distance from loneliness to loveliness and back again in only four studio LPs.

Little Hells is something of a musical shift for Nadler, but she's always done her best to avoid the girl-with-a-guitar stereotype. The folk label is something she's particularly cognizant of, one of the many reasons behind the richer sounds she sought for Little Hells.

"I was getting bored with being labeled as a folk artist, because I really never see myself as that," Nadler said. "The only reason that I ever played acoustic guitar in the first place was because it was the only instrument that I had.

"I love folk music, but I don't like the word," she added.

Her cryptic imagery and word play often earn her another label, one that isn't entirely undeserved: Gothic. While she is quick to point out that the critics miss a lot of the other things she writes about - beauty and nature are a big part of the equation - Nadler does tend to harp on death and mortality, something she said modern indie music shies away from.

"I do get pigeonholed a little bit," she said. "It's not like I wear all black anymore. And I stopped wearing eyeliner every day about five years ago. I'm not Goth. And that kind of thing kind of kills me."

Starting off as a trained painter and visual artist - she attended Rhode Island School of Design - Nadler left painting behind once her first album, Ballads of Living and Dying, saw some success in the U.K. Until recently, she hadn't painted for five years.

"With music, I pick up an instrument, and every day I pick it up, I learn something new," Nadler said. "I never get bored. With painting, I wanted to be perfect. If I made a mistake, I just got so mad at myself."

The transition has hardly been seamless. Nadler referred to herself as "one of the most insecure, self-conscious people you will ever meet" and acknowledged that it's been "a huge, huge problem" in her career. Touring, for her, is a love-hate relationship, to say the least.

"I don't run off stage crying anymore," Nadler said. "I used to. I've really overcome a lot of fears, and I don't have stage fright so much anymore."

But with a new touring band, a refurbished banjo and some personal clarity ("I just cut this person out of my life who I've been writing about for four records," Nadler said), she sounded extremely pleased talking amid rehearsals for the new tour.

"I'm psyched about it because I've just spent too much time alone in hotel rooms for the past five years of my life," she said. "And people will be like, 'Well, God, write a happy f---ing song.' And I'm like, well, why would you be happy if you've been stuck your entire 20s in a hotel room by yourself?

"That's kind of like my sense of humor, I guess. Maybe I'll start writing pop songs once I fall in love and get happy and rich, I don't know," she added. "Kidding, kidding."

Marissa Nadler will open for the Handsome Family Sunday at Iota Club and Café in Arlington, Va. Tickets are $15, and the show starts at 8:30 p.m.

zherrm@gmail.com