Lana Del Rey performs during Outside Lands Music Festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 12, 2023. Photo: Alive Coverage.

SAN FRANCISCO — Cloaked in a thick mist and shrouded in inky darkness, Lana Del Rey never seemed brighter.

The singer-songwriter, making her second appearance at Outside Lands, performed encircled in fog at the Twin Peaks Stage Saturday night. She wore a ruffled knee-length white dress and a red headband that resembled a diadem atop her bouffant hairstyle. When the downbeats started for “A&W,” dancers in black leotards sauntered around her. Diaphanous white fabric billowed behind her to dramatic effect. The video screens showed montages from her music videos. Even the fall-like weather enhanced the cinematic visual and dreamy aesthetic.

Lana Del Rey. Photo: Alive Coverage.

A massive ocean of fans, many with ribbon in their hair, sang along with Lana Dey Rey as she warbled over the wind about “hot summer days, rock and roll” during the following tune, “Young and Beautiful.” Her vocals were solid and seemingly unaffected by the cold. When she was particularly pleased with her performance or a particular refrain, she chuckled and sometimes even trilled.

While most of her oeuvre leans melancholic and bittersweet, she looked decidedly happy.

“All right, San Francisco,” Lana Del Rey said. “It’s amazing that we made it. Thank you so much for coming. It’s a dream to be here again.”

She then laughed and jumped straight into “Bartender” and “Chemtrails over the Country Club.”

Royal blue lights shined and dancers fluttered colorful fans when Del Rey addressed the audience.

“When you write your own songs, it’s not just your voice that comes through, but the voice of your friends too,” she said, adding that pastor Judah Smith of her Southern California celebrity church Churchome was in attendance, with. his wife. Smith makes an appearance on her most recent album, Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.

Roses unfurled on screen and a gospel choir clad in shimmering dresses harmoniously joined the ensemble. The choir lent its voices to “The Grants,” making this and other moments feel particularly otherworldly.

Several young girls wearing white pinafores joined Lana Del Rey on the stage. They stood in a line and braided each other’s hair. She presided over them like a guardian angel. Her falsetto climbed to new heights on “Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have.” Several older women in white dresses then joined the girls.

At one point, Lana Del Rey draped her body over a male dancer as others picked her up and spun her around the stage. She sang “Pretty When I Cry” lying on her back, her red nails gripping the microphone. When she got back on her feet, the choir joined her for “Just Ride.”

Her commentary was mostly directed toward loved ones.

“Father, he’s here!” she shouted and pointed toward the crowd.

She soon shifted to an entirely different sound.

“It ain’t all sunshine and flowers being a singer on the road,” she said as a way of introduction to a rendition of Tammy Wynette’s 1968 country hit “Stand by Your Man.”

Fan favorite “Blue Jeans” followed, offering more rock and roll flavor than the recorded version.

“OK, we are fucking doing this!” Lana Del Rey yelled over heavy drumming and electric guitar licks. The song faded out and warm piano notes kicked off the first bars of the brooding ballad “Norman Fucking Rockwell.”

She perched atop a piano and paused for a moment, expressed gratitude for her audience, and launched into “Arcadia.” Dramatic orchestral and gospel elements were superimposed over moody guitar riffs and sweeping strings.

There was an ease with which Lana Del Rey traversed her songbook, bridging aural nostalgia with fresh experimentation. The curtains that billowed behind her during previous songs transformed into veils for the hauntingly evocative “Ultraviolence.” The screens flickered like candlelight and helped create an eerie ambiance that enhanced the song’s emotionally charged lyrics.

“I just want to say I know so many people in these front rows, it’s amazing,” she said.

She swayed to a slowed rendition of “Summertime Sadness” as the temperature dropped lower and lower, before concluding the night with “Video Games” and the title track to her new album. The choir joined her one last time and infused the song with a sense of hope and redemption. Lana Del Rey playfully waved to fans and swung on a swing with green wines wrapped around it.

“I love you all,” she declared.