Eclectic and inspired Rufus Wainwright to perform Carmel’s Sunset Center.

A decade after Rufus Wainwright unveiled his politically melancholic “I’m Going to a Town,” British pop star Lily Allen resurrected it as an anti-Trump anthem that she performed at the Women’s March in London, the day after Trump’s inauguration.

“I’m going to a town that has already been burnt down/ I’m going to a place that has already been disgraced/ I’m gonna see some folks who have already been let down/ I’m so tired of America.”

Before feeling abandoned by America, Wainwright had felt rejection from his own family – both of his folk musician parents, the late Kate McGarrigle and the still-performing Loudon Wainwright III, didn’t show any acceptance or validation when Rufus came out as homosexual while he was a teenager.

“Mother and father could not even handle me being gay,” Wainwright told Rolling Stone in 1999. “We never talked about it really.”

Suppression was cemented even deeper inside Wainwright after he was sexually assaulted in a park at 14. He says the only way he managed to get out of the situation alive was faking a seizure.

All the tragedy, emotional turmoil, feelings of abandonment and self-doubt helped shape Wainwright into the Grammy-nominated multi-talent who went on to release his self-titled debut, produced by Jon Brion, in 1998.

Though the record didn’t generate any singles, Rolling Stone crowned Wainwright the Best New Artist of 1998 and the album placed No. 5 on The New York Times Top 10 Albums of 1998 list. Most of the songs centered around the theme of unrequited love.

The orchestral opener “Foolish Love” pulsates with a symphony of strings as Wainwright outlines a semi-autobiographical relationship between a gay and straight guy. The love is so blinding that Wainwright doesn’t want to acknowledge the inevitable – the relationship is doomed from the get-go.

“So I will walk without care, beat my snare, look like a man who means business/ Go to all the poshest places with the familiar faces, terminate all signs of weakness.”

In 2002, Wainwright’s Poses showcased his strength as a bonafide poet whose fearlessness is commendable. He opens up about his struggles with drug addiction on “Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk”: “Everything it seems I like’s a little bit sweeter/ A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me.” And “Shadows” reflects Wainwright’s perpetual yearning for popstar notoriety.

“I could be a great star,” Wainwright croons. “Still I’m far from happy.”

In addition to “I Don’t Know What It Is,” the debut single on Wainwright’s third studio album Want One, “Vicious World” is an unexpected juxtaposition where a universe of bright electronic psychedelia, ala The xx, pairs with a chorus of depressing multi-track vocals: “Thought that maybe we’d fall in love over the phone/ Thought that maybe I’d really love being alone/ Everybody but heaven knows how I was wrong.”

Meanwhile, Wainwright channels the hyperactive energy of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on Joy Division’s throwback “Go or Go Ahead.”

The 2004 follow-up to Want One, aptly titled Want Two is a melodic hodgepodge overflowing with special guests, from The Band’s late great drummer Levon Helm to frequent Bob Dylan musical collaborator guitarist Charlie Sexton.

“Memphis Skyline” is a tribute to Jeff Buckley, a singer-songwriter who Wainwright deeply admired.

Following Out of the Game, which Wainwright refers to as the poppiest record of his repertoire, he released Prima Donna, a double album recording of the musician’s 2009 opera of the same name, released internationally by the German classical record label Deutsche Grammophon (Universal Music Group).

Last year, Wainwright strayed even further from the mainstream popstar path he once craved with Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets. Released exactly 400 years after the day of Shakespeare’s death, the grandiose concept album boasts an assortment of guest actors and singers, including Helena Bonham Carter, William Shatner, Florence Welch and the late Carrie Fisher, as well as the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The result is a lively pairing of Wainwright’s adoration of the refined classical and playful pop genres.

“Unperfect Actor” sees Wainwright hook up on lead vocals with Tasmanian singer Fiora Cutler and his sister Martha Wainwright.

In Carmel, Wainwright may bust out a new tune, “How Do You Play A Broken Piano,” inspired by the current political climate.

The show on Friday will also feature music spanning his career, including at least a few of his aforementioned works, in addition to a Leonard Cohen tribute – Wainwright has a daughter with Lorca Cohen, daughter of Leonard, whom he co-parents along with his husband. Extending a step further into the extended family’s musical works, expect covers of Wainwright’s mother’s work to also figure in prominently.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT 8pm Friday, Feb. 3. Sunset Center, San Carlos at Ninth, Carmel. $49-$69. 620-2048, www.sunsetcenter.org.