Nelly Furtado is an unlikely contender in the international diva stakes. Slight, small-boned, with a chirpy little voice, she really is like a bird, as she sang in 2000, when she seemed like a one-hit wonder. She’s cutesiness personified; a strategically aimed high note from Mariah Carey would likely blow Nelly clean across the Atlantic back to her ancestral Portugal.

But on her third album, Furtado ditches the perky pop of her debut, Whoa, Nelly! and the mocha-java world-music stylings of 2003’s Folklore, stepping coolly into the 21st century digital discothèque. “I wanna see you all on your knees, knees,” she crows in “Maneater,” a typically pungent mix of bristling hip-hop rhythm and pure melody, and it’s clear her demand for submission is directed less at “the fellas” than at Beyoncé Knowles, and even the editorial staff of Us Weekly. This is the sound of a very small woman karate-kicking her way onto pop’s A-list.

She’s got a good brother-in-arms. Ten of the 13 tracks are produced by Timbaland, and his shape-shifting skitter and squelch — clobbering backbeats jostled by overdriven synths and hi-hat hiss — provide bracing backdrops. The mood is noirish: “Afraid,” a pop-psychological pep talk (“All you need is some self-reliance/’Cuz this world is gonna always try us”), rides a tolling, spy-movie guitar figure, and even the dazzling, sexed-up single “Promiscuous” has a chorus awash in sepia-toned minor chords.

Furtado is still too much of a pipsqueak to pull off her femme fatale act, and Loose drags at the end. But it has at least seven killer tracks — a batting average as good as Mariah’s and Beyoncé’s — and no listener to the reggaeton-flavored “No Hay Igual” could doubt they’re hearing the best Portuguese-Canadian girl-rapper of all time. This bird has grown.

Download: “Afraid,” “Promiscuous,” “No Hay Igual”