Hilary Duff's new outlook

The singer and former child star releases her first LP in more than a decade. She is figuring out how to balance art and motherhood.

- MIKAEL WOOD POP MUSIC CRITIC

"I'M FINALLY at this place where I'm zero percent ashamed of my past and ... the things that used to embarrass me," Duff says.

(JAY L. CLENDENIN For The Times)

A sparkly pink electric guitar hangs on a wall of the recording studio where Hilary Duff made her new album.

The cozy, gear-filled joint near the Van Nuys Airport belongs to her husband, Matthew Koma, who produced “Luck... or Something,” the singer and actor's first LP in more than a decade. But as Duff points out on a recent afternoon, the paisley-print guitar is all hers.

"I got it for my 16th birthday," she says proudly — a gift from the Fender company. “I found it in the storage unit and Matt was like, ‘Oh, that’s going up there.’”

Before Miley Cyrus, before Sabrina Carpenter, before Olivia Rodrigo, Duff arrived in the early 2000s as a Disney kid with pop-idol ambitions. She broke out in the endearingly awkward title role of the Disney Channel's “Lizzie McGuire,” then went on to star in family-friendly movies like “Agent Cody Banks” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.” By the time she received that guitar, she'd topped the Billboard 200 with her album “Metamorphosis,” which sold 4 million copies and spawned hit singles like “So Yesterday” and “Come Clean.”

Duff stepped away from music for most of her 20s to focus on acting and starting a family. (An attempted comeback album in 2015, “Breathe In. Breathe Out.,” didn’t really go anywhere.) Now, at 38, she’s returned with a bracingly honest record full of the texture and detail of her life as a wife, sister and mother of four.

In frank yet wordy songs that layer guitars and synths over shimmering grooves, Duff sings about trying to overcome old habits and about her fear that her best times are behind her.