Fado is the music of Portugal, a haunting, emotional style intimately bound up with that tiny country's history and seagoing soul. Yet on her latest recording, Mariza, fado's greatest contemporary interpreter, ranges into Cuban jazz, sentimental American pop, Cape Verdean Afro-world music and flamenco blues.

For fado's platinum-haired diva, Terra (Earth) is a natural extension of her love of music -- and of her eight years of performing around the world since the heart-stopping emotion and distinctive voice revealed on her debut album, 2001's Fado en Mim, made her a global music star. Her latest round of musical travels brings her to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday night.

'People, they like to put names on things -- `this is fado, this is blues, this is bossa nova,' ' Mariza said from New York recently. ``But at the end we are talking about music.'

``I'm a normal person who sings a music that explores human beings and life. But all music does that -- blues, gospel, tango, those kinds of songs, they explore your feelings. They try to touch the deepest part of your soul. [Fado] is a kind of music that does that.'

Although fado is intimately linked to Portuguese culture and identity, its sources lie across the world. The music's roots extend into the 12th century and the Provencal troubadors, Jews and North African Moors who lived in Portugal; and into Brazilian and African music brought back from Brazil, a Portuguese colony, in the 19th century. Its melancholy spirit, called saudade, comes from Portugal's centuries as a seafaring nation with colonies across the globe, and the sense of longing for home and lost loved ones that accompanied that role. Saudade is a combination of nostalgia, sadness and an emotional awareness of the power of fate.

Mariza, 35, has been almost single-handedly responsible for bringing fado onto the global stage. Born in Mozambique to an African mother and Portuguese father, she grew up in Moraria, a poor Lisbon neighborhood that is one of the birthplaces of fado, and started singing at her parents' bar when she was only 5. When Mariza started her career in the late '90s, fado was seen as old people's music. But Mariza upended that image; her husky, deeply sweet and emotional voice captured audiences and critics, while her striking looks, dramatic gowns and stage charisma made her a sensation on the world music scene. Her success spurred her contemporaries to revive fado.

'We have a new generation taking care with trying to understand and keep our roots,' Mariza says. ``At same time. they are very proud of having this music. They want to show that this is not a minor music, a minor culture. At the same time, they want to show we can be part of the world. We are in the back of Europe, and sometimes people forget where we are.'

On Terra, Mariza experiments with other styles, some connected to fado. The album's producer is the Spanish flamenco guitarist Javier Limón, famed for his work with flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia and flamenco-jazz-fusion artists and projects like Concha Buika, and Bebo Valdes and Diego El Cigala's Lagrimas Negras. Mariza tried Limón out by having him play guitar at a Lisbon fado club. 'He's always prepared to play, to be near other musicians, to open his mind,' Mariza says. ``He just did his part, and it was a fantastic combination.'

Her collaborators on Terra include Dominic Miller, a longtime guitarist for Sting; Brazilian pianist Ivan Lins and the Cuban jazz pianist Ivan 'Melon' Lewis and his countryman, drummer Horacio 'El Negro' Hernandez, both part of a Cuban jazz-fusion scene in Madrid. Limón also brought in Bebo's son, the famed Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, on a Portuguese folk song Fronteira.

'Chucho went to the studio thinking he would play something very difficult and when we asked him to do something so simple like a folk rhythm from Portugal he started laughing,' Mariza says. ``I didn't ask him. I just felt like it was the correct song for him.'

In Buika, the heart-rending Afro-Spanish singer who joins Mariza on Pequenas Verdades (Little Truths), Mariza says she found a kindred soul. 'She has a fire, she's very truthful, she gives everything, her heart is onstage,' Mariza says.

The most surprising moment on Terra is Smile, the sentimental standard that's been covered by everyone from Judy Garland to Barbra Streisand. It landed on the album by accident, when Mariza and Lins were playing around in the studio. 'I said. `now I'm going to sing something, you just follow me,' ' Mariza remembers. ``I didn't know they were recording. At the end everyone looked very serious, and I said uh oh, we did something wrong. And Javier said, you should put this on the record.'

At least for Mariza, it's not as much of a stretch as you'd think. 'I don't joke with music,' Mariza says. ``Smile is a song I used to listen to. The lyrics are so deep, it reminds me of fado if you translate to Portuguese.'