Olivia Rodrigo’s life as a pop superstar extends back just a little over five years, to early 2021 when her debut single, “Drivers License,” became a colossal hit. But she’s approached her career with such patience and a high standard of quality that she is, in some respects, already an old soul at age 23. Her most significant controversy involved a couple of songs from her first album, “Sour,” that sounded close enough to music by other artists that they warranted a writing credit. She’s earned a reputation for putting on entertaining sold-out shows and released a strong follow-up LP—“Guts” in 2023—that won critical raves and a Grammy nomination for album of the year. While her success has been outsize, it has never seemed out of her control—she has a professional athlete’s focus and keeps her eyes trained on the next milestone.

Ms. Rodrigo’s third album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” (Geffen), out now, is extremely well-crafted and carefully expands her sound for a second time. Working again with producer Dan Nigro (Chappell Roan, Caroline Polachek), the singer-songwriter has created a song cycle about a relationship whose arc runs from the flush of infatuation through happy times to—spoiler alert—a devastating breakup. It’s another confident step forward that doesn’t take serious risks because it doesn’t have to—Ms. Rodrigo is still in the early days of her creative life, after all, building a foundation.

One of Ms. Rodrigo’s most endearing qualities is her desire to honor the music of her parents’ generation, which she heard when growing up early in this century. She’s brought the Breeders on tour as an opening act, and she has frequently name-checked Riot Grrrl acts such as Bikini Kill. While she’s often mentioned bands from the ’90s as inspiration, on “You Seem Pretty Sad” she looks back a decade earlier. The first track, “Drop Dead,” begins with synth pulses and synthetic drums in a way that immediately evokes the ’80s. The song details the initial encounter that launches the romance that is the record’s primary storyline. Ms. Rodrigo is drawn to her crush because he knows all the words to the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” and the swooning keyboard line running through the cut recalls the goth-rock band’s 1985 single “In Between Days.”

While Ms. Rodrigo draws from rock and pop’s past for arrangements, her melodies always have a post-2010s shape. They alternate among softer cooing, silent breakdowns, half-rapped bridges, and multitracked vocals designed to encourage stadium singalongs. The variety comes from lyrical nuance and instrumental change-ups, while the construction of her songs has been consistent. On the ballad “Honeybee,” a simple expression of affection, her voice is layered into a choir and mixed with a stately piano and strings—it has a chamber-pop air and unfolds with little tension or emotional weight. “Maggots for Brains,” which was partly inspired by a storyline in “Sex and the City,” has a pulsing bassline that traces directly to New Order, while the explosive radio-ready chorus is something beyond that band’s remit. And “My Way,” about a backstabbing girl who crossed a line with Ms. Rodrigo’s boyfriend, is pop-punk with a new-wave sheen, a combination of sounds that brings to mind Paramore.

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