Donna Missal creates the high school dance she never had on her first headlining tour

Growing up, Donna Missal didn’t attend school dances or have awkward photos in the yearbook or participate in other public school traditions. So for her maiden headlining tour, the New Jersey-raised electro-pop singer-songwriter decided to create her own.

“I wanted to make it this memorable experience, re-creating this school dance — but maybe at a point where you are more ready for that kind of an event,” says Missal, who was home-schooled along with her five siblings.

Since proms can be notoriously bad experiences, she wanted to put a different spin on hers. You can see what she came up with when she stops at Neighborhood Theatre Tuesday.

“Wear whatever you want. Bring whoever you want. Come alone. Make friends,” she says. “I hear a lot of stories like ‘I was gay and I had to bring a girl to the prom and it was uncomfortable.’ Or ‘I wore this thing I can’t believe I wore.’ No one seems to have an amazing memory. This is a chance to do it all over again. You know who you are. That’s where I am in my life now. This tour is a reminder that even if you feel like you aren’t there yet, eventually you can be.”

For her debut album, Missal wanted to make a record that reflected her hodge-podge of influences, including power soul female vocalists, R&B, hip-hop, pop and classic rock. She relied on her big family to make sure she was hitting all the marks.

“I wanted to be sure everyone in the family enjoyed it, so I knew I was hitting on all of my influences,” she says.

The result was “This Time,” which explores themes of self-love, confidence, patience and positivity linger. In fact, not since androgynous Swedish pop siren Robyn was “Dancing on My Own” in 2010 has a solo female artist released such a flawlessly consistent and moody electro-dance pop album.

“I made the album over a couple years and I had a lot of time to think about that, and that became the overarching theme,” Missal says. “That concept that we’re all working on a clock and — especially for women — time is this essential thing we need to think about and build our lives around.”

“It became clear that I wanted to explore and talk about self-love, self-acceptance and confidence, and how they take a long time (to build). It’s not something that comes natural. It didn’t for me. There’s no running out of time. You can start creating whenever you want to, and whenever you’re ready. There’s so much that pushes us to capitalize on our youth, and it’s a myth. The further you get along in your life, whatever it is you’re going after, just do it. However long it takes. It’s important that we’re reminding ourselves of that every day.”