Try to define Regina Spektor, and she slips away. Born in Moscow and raised in the Bronx, Spektor still sings with a foreign inflection in her voice. Over the last half decade, the classically trained pianist played her narrative songs on New York’s café circuit. Last year’s Soviet Kitsch, with its raw sketches of divorcées, rich boys and cancer patients, won her fame beyond New York. On Begin to Hope, Spektor enlists a cadre of musicians, broadens her sonic palate and proves that she is more than just an edgy chanteuse.

Begin to Hope opens with the offbeat love song “Fidelity.” Pizzicato strings provide more of a bounce than a beat, as Spektor croons, “I never loved nobody fully / always one foot on the ground.” When she crafts an unconventional pop tune, such as “Hotel Song” or “On the Radio,” Spektor has an edge of awkwardness that makes the listener want to embrace her.

Spektor’s voice becomes more powerful, and even fierce, when she plays a character and accompanies herself alone on piano. On “Samson,” she casts herself as the lover of the mythical Hebrew strongman. The aching ballad “Field Below” paints a cityscape where “darkness spreads over the snow / like ancient bruises.” She switches genders on “Summer in the City” and becomes a horny habitué of late night bars who attends “a protest just to rub against strangers.”

Threads of rock, pop, cabaret and untraceable European folk music run through the songs on Begin to Hope. The voice of Regina Spektor and the poetry of her lyrics weave those musical elements into an unmistakable album.