Her time has finally come

Anna Nalick talks a lot like you might expect a pop ingenue would. The 21-year-old singer-songwriter mentions how she has been on the road the past several months touring with songs from her new album, ''Wreck of the Day." She name-drops her musical heroes, as in early-1990s rock bands such as the Cranberries and Blind Melon. She talks about how her bedroom remains basically the same at her parents' house in California and how she misses her kitty, Lexy, when she's away. She's away a lot, too.

Mostly, though, Nalick, who plays at tomorrow's WBOS EarthFest, likes to discuss time, specifically how she prefers to take her time. ''Wreck of the Day" already boasts a rising Adult Top 40 hit single, the silky ''Breathe (2 AM)," but the album has been in the works since late 2003. That's not exactly the speed at which most fledgling pop singers travel, now is it?

''It's true; it's been a long time in the making," Nalick says from Portland, Ore., where she has just finished a segment for a morning TV show. ''We've taken our time so that I could get used to touring and really develop my songs and style. I'm really happy that we did it that way, too."

The constant ''we" refers to Nalick's handlers at her label, Columbia Records, who are in exact agreement with Nalick. Lee Dannay, vice president of A&R, says, ''The plan for Anna has been sharply designed so that we give her her space, and we just provide some guidance along the way. I knew when I heard her that she's a career artist, someone who's going to be around for the long haul."

Dannay says she was taken with Nalick's songs primarily because of her ''insightful songwriting, and also because she has both artistic credibility and commercial accessibility."

It also helps that Nalick is the adorable girl next door with a voice tailor-made for radio -- smooth but slightly edgy, with just a touch of R&B-inflected phrasing. With such attributes, it's no wonder Nalick has courted comparisons to Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, and Tori Amos. Nalick takes them in stride because ''I've always liked all the people I've been compared to," she says.

She's also not really like any of those musicians, certainly less mannered than Apple and Morissette. Nalick's style is more of the earnest singer-songwriter who holes up in her bedroom scribbling away in journals with her cat nearby. And that's exactly what she does: ''I've been keeping a journal since I was 12," she says, and she has previously mentioned that her favorite place to perform is in her bedroom for her cat.

Nalick tends to write in a confessional vein, with just enough lovelorn angst to attract women her age and the coveted teenage market. ''Driving away from the wreck of the day/ And the light's always red in the rear view/ Desperately close to a coffin of hope/ I cheat destiny just to be near you," she sings coolly on her album's title track.

The singer has always known she wanted to do this. Her grandparents, including her late grandmother who lived in Dorchester and Quincy for many years, were Broadway performers who instilled in her a love of Gershwin tunes and a sense of entertaining others. ''I've always thought about the power of entertainment," she says. ''I like the idea of giving people a moment of escape from their lives."

She spent her high school years writing her own songs and performing in an all-female Rush cover band (believe it or not). When she started college, she was recording her own songs on a Rainbow Brite cassette recorder. Through a friend, Nalick's demos ended up with a talent scout who introduced her to Eric Rosse, Christopher Thorn, and Brad Smith, the last two are original members of Blind Melon who now are a production team. Within two weeks of her shopping around a more polished demo, Columbia signed Nalick.

Nalick has an ambitious showbiz side, which is evident when asked what she's been reading lately. ''I've been reading a lot of books about music, because I'm very interested in all aspects of the music industry, and I want to understand what people around me are doing."

A few moments later, though, she's back to being the starstruck singer.

''Everything is very surreal right now," she says. ''I was on 'Regis and Kelly' yesterday, and I'm thinking to myself, 'I can't believe this is finally happening to me.' I can't wait to have grandkids someday so I can tell them all these amazing stories."

Anna Nalick is part of tomorrow’s WBOS EarthFest music lineup. The free concert at DCR Hatch Shell (along the Esplanade) starts at noon, and Nalick is scheduled to play at 12:35. www.earthfest.com.