From the very beginning, Melanie Martinez has dwelled in darkness. Maybe on the surface it didn’t seem that way, given the cotton-candy-colored artwork and sugary pop hooks of her first album, 2015’s Cry Baby . Yet on that surprising debut, Martinez — then best known for her short stint as a shy but inventive favorite on The Voice — built a bleak, biting world of family secrets and a loss of innocence. She tucked everything in a pastel, childlike aesthetic, creating the character of a little