Last fall, Demi Lovato bridged a new gap.

No longer was she the Disney Channel expat carving her place in the mainstream, but a bonafide pop superstar — it’s hard to believe she’s been selling out arenas for almost a decade now — stretching her aesthetic toward a more nuanced genre in R&B.

Lovato’s sixth album “Tell Me You Love Me,” released in September, was the “Camp Rock” star’s first earnestly adult LP; romantic turmoil has always been a preferred subject for the Texas-born songwriter, but never had she sang with so much soul, poise or sensuality — never had she been so believable or raw. While the album’s platinum-selling lead single “Sorry, Not Sorry,” her highest charting track to date at No. 6 on the Hot 100, remained a pop-leaning banger, many songs off “Tell Me” wouldn’t have been so out of place on a Beyonce or Alicia Keys record.

And Lovato’s accompanying world tour, which packed Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia Friday night with 15,000 shrieking fans, was deliberate in its demonstration of this sultry new path, underscoring again and again that at 25 years old, Lovato has officially expunged her unoffending, tween-marketed persona and replaced it with a strong-willed adult female artist who touts her own list of fears, frustrations and desires.

All night she was up close and personal with her scantily clad dancers, grabbing necks, stroking muscles, almost going in for the kiss. Her same-sex-fling anthem “Cool For The Summer” finished with her encased by the groping troupe, and later in the 90-minute performance, on her auxiliary stage — little more than a large bed centered on a rotating platform near the back of the arena — she spent a bit of her lamenting new track “Lonely” crawling across the mattress in her ivory bustier, arching her back and thrusting her hips as shirtless two dancers slinked nearby. Some cheered, others surely blushed.

Lovato spent most of the night dressed in blacks, whites and creams, strutting around the prop-devoid, dumbbell-shaped main stage. A six-piece band was hidden between 2 rows of HD screen panels behind and above her. This muted color palette and minimalist approach has become a preferred look for superstars of late: Beyonce, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, and Adele all took this streamlined style on their most recent tours.

And it’s just as well for Lovato, who doesn’t need much periphery to boost her titanic vocal performance, which rarely missed Friday night and was particularly strong on back-to-back ballads “Warrior,” tied to a message of strength for those struggling from mental health and addiction problems (Lovato is 7 years sober) — “no matter what you’re going through, you can overcome it,” she said, sitting centerstage at a baby grand piano — and “Father,” an exceedingly emotional song of forgiveness written for her abusive dad, who died in 2013.

Lovato’s sky-scraping belting range and airy head voice were locked in all night, and though you could likely peg her for over-singing in some moments, she will almost certainly go down alongside Ariana Grande as the 2010s-era pop generation’s most versatile and powerful vocalists. The music just pours out of her.

All night, from the new, uptempo jams “Daddy Issues” and “Sexy Dirty Love,” to the more contemplative and sharply delivered “Crybaby,” it felt as though Lovato was on a mission to usher in this new era, be it in her more suggestive dancing or steelier glances — or, more obviously, who she brought on tour with her.

The last Demi Lovato tour was a co-headliner with fellow ex-Disney star Nick Jonas. This time, her openers were the smoky California R&B newcomer Kehlani and hip-hop mogul and social media mega-star DJ Khaled, who should replace his “bless up” and “we the best” mottos with “work smarter not harder” — for 35 minutes Friday he did little more than hype himself, urge the crowd to sing the words to songs he helped collaborate, and occasionally scratch on the turntables. When he’s got a whole posse of “special guest” rap stars to bring out, he’s plenty entertaining, but this time it really begged the question: “so, what does DJ Khaled do, exactly?”

In any event, this was telling outing for Lovato and where she is as an artist who had the luxury of achieving fame very early — six gold albums at 25 years old is certainly impressive — and still has plenty of prime years to adjust her sound as she pleases. So far it’s working, and with that voice, I doubt there’s a boundary she can’t breach.

Demi Lovato’s set list

“You Don’t Do It for Me Anymore” (intro)
“Daddy Issues”
“Cool for the Summer”
“Sexy Dirty Love”
“Heart Attack”
“Give Your Heart a Break”
“Confident”
“Games”
Stage B
“Concentrate”
“Cry Baby”
“Lonely”
Stage A
“No Promises” (Cheat Codes cover)
“Échame la culpa” (Luis Fonsi cover)
“Warrior”
“Father”
“Smoke & Mirrors”
“Sorry Not Sorry”
“Tell Me You Love Me”