Lucy Dacus takes fans on an emotional rollercoaster ride at the Benedum Center

Building a concert setlist is an art in itself. By no means has every touring act perfected it. There’s a lot of balance involved: upbeat and downbeat songs, ballads and party anthems, deep cuts and crowd pleasers all have to find their place.

Indie rock singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus displayed many talents at her Wednesday night concert at the Benedum Center, and setlist composition was definitely one of them.

Dacus is a relatively new artist; her first studio album came out in 2016, and her fourth — “Forever Is a Feeling,” for which the current tour is named — was released earlier this year. In between her solo works, she’s also made music and toured with Grammy Award-winning group Boygenius along with fellow artists Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker.

The set’s first song, “Hot & Heavy,” showcased some of Dacus’ most impressive talents: her gentle, steady and emotive vocals, and her masterful lyricism. As she paced the stage in a sharp blazer, strumming her guitar, she sang lyrics that felt both poetic and grounded.

The album “Forever Is a Feeling” got the most attention throughout the night, with almost every song on the tracklist getting its time in the spotlight. The first of the new songs was “Ankles,” the album’s first single. “Ankles” was both sensual and emotional, with exceptional violin work from Phoenix Rousiamanis and a spirited drive behind it thanks to complex guitar.

Many of Dacus’ songs feel conversational, like snapshots of memories. That quality makes for personal-feeling performances, such as “VBS,” an ode to Vacation Bible School. “Brando” was another such song, and her sly-yet-impassioned delivery really made the song pop.

Speaking of personal, Dacus let the audience know that this was her and her backing band’s last headlining show for awhile. “My dad is here!” she said to cheers.

Some songs also had an old-fashioned quality but contain elements that keep them current. For example, “Limerence,” an art piece on its own that brought forward the violin and keys but still referenced the video game “Grand Theft Auto.” Dacus delivered the heartbreaking number sitting down and with a gentle power to her voice.

The centerpiece of the show was upbeat ballad “Best Guess,” which found Dacus and the band joined onstage by seven couples who the singer married there on the spot. After the “I do”s were exchanged to the happy screams of the audience, Dacus raced around the stage handing flowers to the new spouses.

“That got me today, I was barely holding it together,” she said after the song ended and the couples left to celebrate their new futures together. “Thank you, married people! So special.”

After that emotional high, she ratcheted back down to some softer songs with “Big Deal” and its keyboard notes like falling teardrops, and the stripped-down “For Keeps,” which she sang from an onstage couch. You could feel the ebb and flow in the audience, many of whom had been standing up to that point but chose to retake their seats for a few minutes.

After following that with “Trust,” a reflective song about identity that she called “the oldest song I have,” the set started a climb back toward the upbeat. She called Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Brooke Annibale to the stage, and together they sang “Bullseye.” On the recording of “Forever Is a Feeling,” the charming ditty is a duet with Irish star Hozier.

“Oh no, the show’s almost done!” she said before performing the intimate love song “Lost Time,” which moved from soft and sweet to more bombastic and percussive at its close. Before the encore, she played the newest album’s title track, an uplifting highlight.

Returning for the encore, she said, “Having too much fun, had to come back.”

The audience would probably have gone home content without any songs from Boygenius’s lone studio album, “the record,” but Dacus pulled out “True Blue” anyway. The crowd roared its appreciation and sang along.

Not as much as they sang along — with Dacus’ encouragement — with the real closer. She wrapped up with “Night Shift,” a raw and building song that starts off quiet and eventually detonates into a perfect moment of concert-ending catharsis.

I’d wager no one left the auditorium unhappy — especially not the newly married couples (and congratulations to them). Sometimes concerts can feel both like art and therapy, and Dacus has perfected that balance, too.

Indie rock band Slow Pulp opened the evening, capturing the attention of the crowd with Emily Massey’s breathy vocals, catchy and repetitive choruses and propulsive percussion. While their guitar-driven tunes dominated, the more subdued “Broadview” stood out and served as a perfect appetizer for the headlining set.

Then, just before Dacus took the stage, a pre-recorded announcement from the artist reminded attendees that $1 from each ticket would go to The Ally Coalition to support organizations that help queer and trans youth.