Tate McRae, with Zara Larsson, at TD Garden, Boston, Tuesday, Aug. 26.

A lot of artists tell audiences that their city is special. Tate McRae had the song to prove it: “ Think Later ,” with Boston right there in the lyrics and written about what the singer called a crazy night that she spent in the Hub. The timeline would suggest that it followed one of the two times she’d performed at the TD Garden as part of the revolving-door roster of the annual Jingle Ball Christmas concert .

So when McRae took the Garden stage on Tuesday, she was returning to a venue she’d played before. But the concert — the first of two sold-out nights, with a third scheduled for October — marked a distinct leveling up for the pop star, her first time headlining the place and thus having to prove herself for

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