Whatever cosmic portent Sunday night’s supermoon/lunar eclipse combination held, it provided a dramatic backdrop for the triumphant finale of the Boston Calling music festival on City Hall Plaza. Thousands of concertgoers swiveled their heads between a mighty performance by Alabama Shakes and the wondrously rare lunar spectacle overhead — both offering theatrical wonders.  While the garage-soul band had previously proven its mettle in sweaty, deliriously transporting club shows, here it showed it’s got the goods for the more unwieldy environment of an outdoor festival, holding the crowd in thrall with ruminations both soft and slamming.  Whether it was caused by the eclipse or the enthusiatic crowd, singer-guitarist Brittany Howard howled at the moon with more fervor than usual, unleashing her shrieks, grunts, and coos with an almost otherworldly force, as if the sounds inside her simply had to come out. The band, beefed up with auxiliary players and back-up singers, deftly followed her lead, locking into an unshakable groove for the entirety of a nearly 90-minute set that drew from the Shakes’ acclaimed 2012 debut, “Boys & Girls,” and its more psychedelic follow-up, “Sound & Color,” moving from slithery funk to rattling Southern soul and beyond.  “We got ourselves a blood moon eclipse — that means it’s time to get weird,” announced Howard, whose nimble guitar chops were on show throughout the night, as the band launched into an epic, appropriately out of this world version of the gauzy, meandering jam “Gemini.”  In two of the night’s peak performances, Howard seemingly channeled every broken heart she’d ever suffered into the melodramatic “Heartbreaker,” and testified in the yearning “Joe,” in which she lamented that she could reach her dreams but not this elusive man.  Drawing one of the day’s biggest, most-concentrated crowds was Hozier, who seems to grow more assured with every performance, and sounded even stronger here than he had at the Newport Folk Festival in July. The Irish singer-songwriter performed the hits from his darkly hued and acclaimed debut, including the majestic “Take Me to Church” and the pulsating, gospel-tinged “Someone New,” which included a sublime interpolation of the Beatles’ “Blackbird.”  British singer-songwriter Ben Howard was somewhat unfortunate to be scheduled immediately after a set by Nate Ruess, making for a hard transition from technicolor pop to brooding folk rock. While the sundown slot was more suited to the music Howard and his band make — a churning maelstrom of acoustic and electric textures — it was quiet enough at times to be marred by Hozier’s techs soundchecking on the festival’s other stage. Still, several tunes managed to slice through, including the lovely, melodic “I Forget Where We Were.”  The night was deja vu for Ruess, who played Boston Calling in 2013 with his band fun. The animated singer-songwriter drew some of the day’s biggest cheers for his upbeat, harmony-rich set, which included songs from his debut solo album, “Grand Romantic” (including instant sing-along “Great Big Storm”); fun. hits like “Carry On” and “We Are Young”; a poignant piano version of “Just Give Me a Reason,” his hit duet with Pink; and satisfying covers of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” and Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”  The day’s most pleasant surprise came from New York’s effervescent Misterwives, who injected their late-afternoon slot with a combination of delightfully quirky pop froth, bright horn punctuation, and singer Mandy Lee’s girlish yet powerful vocals. Onstage, Lee was a whirling dervish, bouncing around like she was leading an aerobics class, doing push-ups a la vintage Gwen Stefani of No Doubt. She pushed her voice to places both ethereal and walloping on tunes like the defiant “Not Your Way” and a mash-up cover of the Weeknd’s “I Can’t Feel My Face” and Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.”  Technical difficulties were not enough to topple a triumphantly soulful set by former Bostonian George Lewis Jr., a.k.a. Twin Shadow, who told the crowd that he used to skateboard — badly — right there on City Hall Plaza. Even in the afternoon’s bright light, he was able to put across his icy hot combination of electronic soundscapes and smoky vocals, pouring heart and grit into “Flatliners” (occasionally whacking a cymbal for dramatic emphasis) and the highly appropriate title track of his latest album, “Eclipse.”  Alabama Shakes, Hozier, Ben Howard, Nate Reuss, Misterwives, Twin Shadow, and more. At City Hall Plaza, Sunday
The final day of Boston Calling offered diverse musical pleasures and a great view of the Blood Moon eclipse.