Kelly Clarkson at Nassau Coliseum: Multifaceted star always at home onstage

Kelly Clarkson will be shifting career gears soon. But her show at NYCB Live’s Nassau Coliseum Thursday night makes it very clear that she will always be at home on the concert stage.

Already a coach on “The Voice,” Clarkson will launch her own talk show for NBC this fall and a new animated movie “UglyDolls” in May. Her ability to pick and develop talent on “The Voice” has already yielded two winners, including season 14 champion Brynn Cartelli. The 15-year-old singer opened the show with a strong 20-minute set that included her take on Radiohead’s “Creep” and her new single, “Last Night’s Mascara.”

But Clarkson, 36, really is one of the best entertainers around and she said early on that she wanted the upcoming talk show to be a unifying experience. “Right now, there’s so much division and it’s silly,” Clarkson said. “We have so many things in common.”

Her latest album, the Grammy-nominated “Meaning of Life,” was an underrated gem, which her current tour proves again and again. The throwback soul of the title track, followed by the single “Love So Soft,” and the raucous “Whole Lotta Woman” made the most of Clarkson’s 11-piece band, which included a four-piece horn section. Her medley that started with “Because of You” and moved through the sleek pop of “Just Missed the Train” and “Beautiful Disaster” to the rocking “Sober” showed how well she can handle nearly any musical style.

What sets Clarkson apart, though, is her ability to share her feelings so openly. When she delivered the wrenching “Piece by Piece,” about her troubled childhood and her determination to not repeat her father’s mistakes, she was visibly moved by the song's mournful lyrics. But when she finished, she quickly told a joke and explained, “I can’t write if it’s not depressing or if I’m not mad.”

Clarkson’s “Minute + A Glass of Wine” segment, which she broadcasts on Facebook Live, has become the heart of the show. She did an amazing mashup of Cardi B’s “Be Careful,” Post Malone’s “Better Now” and Lauryn Hill’s “Ex Factor” that she and the band worked out Thursday afternoon. And then she brought out a local choreographer to teach her a new dance to “Love So Soft” for a charming bit.

It’s all part of the same Clarkson vision that brought openers Cartelli and Kelsea Ballerini out to close her main set with “Miss Independent” and that fueled the inspirational encore with anthems like “Stronger” and “Never Enough.”