Singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco (pictured) has spent a quarter-decade attacking both her guitar strings and feminist topics with pointed fervor, so it’s no surprise that she tackles reproductive freedom on her new song “Play God,” singing “You don’t get to play God, man. I do.” Expect to hear DiFranco drop that number into her Friday set at the Berklee Performance Center, on her “Vote Dammit” tour.

Also on Friday, British prog-rock stalwarts Marillion—its Steve Hogarth-fronted edition intact for more than 25 years—hit Royale on their first U.S. tour in four years. About half of the show should draw from Marillion’s latest album FEAR, which ambitiously sports three suites, addressing political entitlement, capitalism and the gypsy-like life of the road. The same night, ex-Bostonian guitarist/singer and music journalist Ted Drozdowski returns to town with his Scissormen for a hearty blues-rooted pairing with Peter Parcek at Somerville’s Thunder Road. And Indonesian piano prodigy Joey Alexander—now seasoned at age 13—brings his sophisticated trio to Scullers Jazz Club’s customized new downstairs room at Hilton’s riverside Doubletree Suites hotel on both Friday and Saturday.

Saturday’s biggest show arrives in the first of two nights by Alabama’s retro-soul breakout St. Paul & the Broken Bones at Royale (click here to jump to my recent interview with unlikely-if-charismatic frontman Paul Janeway). Another hot ticket for Saturday: the punk-minded Orwells at the Middle East. And Sunday roars in with the frenetic fretwork of guitar hotshot Steve Vai (the guy that Frank Zappa hired to execute the impossible parts) at the Wilbur Theatre in addition to the Steve Miller Band, revisiting the space cowboy’s well-honed ’70s hits at Lynn Auditorium—not that far from Logan if you want to arrive by jet airliner.

Tip ahead: Next Wednesday, the Pet Shop Boys get trippy with danceable, theatrical electro-pop behind new album Super at the Orpheum Theatre.