A year after her 2024 synth-shocked opus Girl with No Face, LA-via-Toronto pop shapeshifter Allie X has reinvented herself once again. Composed largely on her first instrument, the piano, Happiness Is Going to Get You presents the more fantastical flip side to its dance-floor-driven predecessor, with the always glamboyant singer adopting a new persona she dubs the Infant Marie, whose retro-futurist look—part Marie Antoinette, part Klaus Nomi—serves as the album’s sonic mood board. The result is a set of cosmopolitan alt-pop earworms infused with a playfully baroque sensibility. The whistling hook and fleet-footed rhythms of “7th Floor” position it as a close cousin to Peter Bjorn and John’s mid-2000s touchstone “Young Folks,” while the bassy bounce of “Reunite” leads us into a sunshower of twinkling harpsichords. But Allie’s musical extravagance is always anchored by her self-analytical lyrics and devious sense of humor: “I Hope You Hear This Song” sees her dreaming of writing the sort of chart-topping hit that gets played everywhere out in the world—not for fame and fortune, but to haunt and taunt an ex-boyfriend while he’s “shopping at the mall, getting coffee at the stall.” And thanks to its insidious melody and buoyant “Bitter Sweet Symphony” strings, she just might get her wish.