Kevin Bronson on July 22nd, 2016

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Any summertime series called “Sunset Concerts” suggests something breezy and lightweight, right? Y’know, maybe some oldies, or some pop to serenade L.A.’s orange-ish skies.

Far from the case Thursday evening at the Skirball Cultural Center’s Sunset Concerts, which kicked off a genre-spanning six-week run with the genre-defying indie quintet Thao & the Get Down Stay Down.

Fronted by Virginia-born, San Francisco-based Thao Nguyen, the band gave an intense, focused 90 minutes of music featuring songs from the Get Down Stay Down’s fifth album, “A Man Alive.” The topical matter on the Merrill Garbus (Tune-Yards)-produced album — the turbulent relationship with her father, abuse, despair — isn’t the stuff of cheery convos over cocktails. Nor does Thao’s music settle into any kind of comfort zone, bobbing as it does from folk-pop to indie-rock to hip-hop to noise.

Still, the faithful who rapaciously soaked up Nguyen’s lyrics were richly rewarded, and the frontwoman seemed thrilled to be playing a well-appointed museum courtyard rather than the (unnamed) club they had played a few nights prior, where, she joked, the band was scared to step on the carpet in the green room for fear of sticking.

The main set culminated with Nguyen urging victims of abuse to “stay angry” and then launching into the new album’s “Meticulous Bird,” with its repeated mantra, “I find the scene of the crime / I take my body back.”

As they did in April when they headlined the Regent Theater, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down started their encore with their fun cover of Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On” and finished with the title track to their 2013 album “We the Common (For Valerie Bolden),” a song written for a woman who is serving a life sentence in prison for killing her abuser.

It was not an umbrella in a drink but a stab in the ribs from an artist who demands that you pay attention, pay attention.

The Skirball’s series continues next Thursday with Sinkane. It’s free; parking is $10.