The Brooklyn songwriter Sharon Van Etten is like a tamer version of Fiona Apple–she doesn’t come off quite as maddened as the gloriously unhinged Apple, but her songs contain a subtler form of rage and passion. Van Etten is a confessional writer; she’s openly talked about her broken relationships, including one abusive ex-boyfriend who used to break her guitars and tell her she wasn’t good enough to play out. The guy must have been an idiot as well as an asshole–Van Etten’s songs poetically transform loss and disappointment into lovely paeans sung in her crystalline voice; she comes off as mournful but also admirably self-composed and even a little bit triumphant. On “Serpents,” the ravishing first single from her third album, this year’s Tramp, she spits, “You enjoy sucking on dreams/So I will fall asleep/With someone other than you.” With The War On Drugs. ERIN K. THOMPSON

Sun., March 25, 8 p.m., 2012