In recent years, she has become a one-woman hit factory, working with Kurstin and others to write songs for artists like Christina Aguilera and Beyoncé. For some, this process can still be soul-wrenching and endless, but Furler has no patience for that. Pop hits these days usually have at least two or three writers, and the choruses are generally celebratory - “victim to victory,” as Furler put it. She hunched over her laptop and started typing, turning her gibberish into real words, which she simultaneously sang over the piano. She scat-sang more gibberish: “Mananananan-m-dah! M-dah!” Within minutes, they coalesced in the form of a pop song.

She and Greg Kurstin, a producer and writer, quickly settled into a familiar routine in which she sang and gave short instructions - “that’s nice” “that’s emo” - and he followed with big, ringing, gospel-sounding chords on his Steinway. And though she is slight and barely 5-foot-5, her ability to sing in an eerie high register, like Merry Clayton on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” makes her seem much taller. Furler usually wears her lightning blond hair in a bob that’s somewhere between Anna Wintour and Deborah Harry, but this morning it was tied in a loose braid.

It was a sunny Los Angeles morning in early March, and Furler, who is 38, was dressed in a white tank top and capri pants with a blue, long-sleeved shirt tied around her waist. As the music played, Furler began scat-singing: “Ha-ha-ha-ha!” There she pulled a MacBook Air from her white Goyard bag and called up “Living Out Loud,” a song she had just started writing. Sia Furler walked into the Silver Lake studio 10 minutes late, ignoring the 22 keyboards and six guitars and giant speakers on her way to the blue velour sofa in the back.

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