A dependably chatty Cyndi Lauper was in fine form Friday, Aug. 1, at Pine Knob Music Theatre as she made her latest metro Detroit visit in what has been an eclectic, nearly five-decade performing career.

But this one came under wistful circumstances: The bubbly star is amid the final leg of her farewell tour and — barring some dramatic change of mind — her Pine Knob concert was her final one in Michigan.

“I did want to come back and say goodbye,” Lauper said early in the set to a loud reply of “noooo” from the crowd. “I love you guys.”

That wasn’t just audience pandering. It was heartfelt sentiment from an artist who invested her show with genuine emotion while frolicking through the hits that made her one of the quirkiest acts to find mass pop success in the 1980s before her creative journey led to increasingly deeper material.

Sporting assorted colored wigs and eye-catching outfits, some of them designer-made, Lauper spent as much time talking as singing. With a charming informality, as if yakking with old friends, she offered anecdotes from the trenches of the music biz, reminisced about her childhood in Queens and casually quoted from “Kinky Boots,” the 2012 musical that brought her a Tony Award to go with her Grammys and Emmy.

The setlist kicked off with the early career hit “She Bop,” following a video montage of signature career moments and a burst of DayGlo-colored confetti, establishing a retro visual theme that would return throughout the night. Many fans had done their part, too, arriving in circa-1984 outfits for Lauper’s victory lap.

The nearly two-hour set offered a spirited showing from a natural-born performer who, at 72, has said she wanted to stage one big last tour while she still had the stamina to do it.

The Fox Theatre was among the first stops on Lauper’s international farewell tour when she launched it last fall; now Pine Knob came amid a homestretch that will conclude later this month.

It was part of a local show history that stretches back to her inaugural spring 1984 concert at the Detroit Opera House (then Grand Circus Theater), when “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” had thrust her onto the mainstream radar and made her an MTV staple.

Friday’s peppy material included the rhythm-heavy “Iko Iko” and rock-fueled “Change of Heart,” along with “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” a song Lauper avoided in concert for nearly two decades after it became a soundtrack hit from the 1985 movie “Goonies.” The bass-driven “Into the Nightlife,” a 2008 cut that was Lauper’s last real global hit, got fans shimmying.

But her wider creative range showed with selections such as a simmering “Who Let in the Rain” (cowritten with Detroit native Allee Willis), a sentimental “Sally’s Pigeons” and an open-throated performance of “I’m Gonna Be Strong,” reaching back to her pre-solo days with the New York band Blue Angel.

“Time After Time” — the masterpiece of Lauper’s career — was accompanied by an amphitheater of cellphone lights, with the singer clutching her own luminated device onstage. “True Colors,” the 1986 hit that has evolved into an LGBTQ+ anthem, was an encore number accompanied by show opener Jake Wesley Rogers and an unfurled Pride flag.

Lauper’s distinctive vocals, complete with her hiccupping yelps, occasionally faced challenges that had her fiddling with her ear monitors, including a rocky start to “Time After Time.” And her voice was clearly flagging by the time she got to show closer “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” where she abandoned the high notes altogether.

Still, that 1984 breakout hit was the right and obvious finale — wrapping up Friday night with the infectious, ebullient energy that took Lauper and Pine Knob back to where it had all started.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.