It has been a pleasure to watch Ani DiFranco grow as a songwriter and performer over these past—oh man, is it really 20 years now?

From her humble beginnings as an “open mic” artist, to her arrival as independent music figurehead and DIY icon, it’s all been good. This latest bit of the trip, though, has offered the finest scenery.

DiFranco has always been vibrant, aggressively independent, a killer guitarist and a fearless traveler with more than a touch of the poet to light her way. But lately, she’s become a songwriter whose vistas are opening wide before her. Many artists find their niche, then work within it for the rest of their allotted time. DiFranco just seems to be growing outward, as if eager to fulfill the indie musician-autodidact’s mandate of ceaseless searching.

The payoff for both DiFranco and her audience has been substantial. For those who have taken the trip with her —and there were many of them at Monday’s “homecoming gig” inside “the church that Ani built” at the corner of West Tupper Street and Delaware Avenue—the deeply personal observations of the early work have flowered into universal musings on life, love and civic involvement.

DiFranco’s chosen subject matter is the whole big mess that is most conveniently stowed beneath the umbrella of “the human condition.” She writes about what she knows and what she doesn’t know (but is trying to figure out) with equal conviction. That takes fortitude.

Monday’s show was ostensibly a stop on the “Red Letter Year” trek launched following that album’s September 2008 release. However, the whole paradigm has shifted somewhere along the way. Though a few songs from that purposeful album still sit at the core of the set, DiFranco is moving on, as she has been wont to do from the beginning. Monday’s crowd was gifted with a slew of new as yet unreleased songs, and they make it plain that the artist is still keen on trying new things.

With her band — bassist Todd Sickafoose, vibes/percussion player Mike Dillon and new drummer Andy Borger — DiFranco sought to marry the taut funk-folk-punk that has long been the key ingredient in her stew with more languid, melodic, nigh-on-jazzy pieces that (like all her best work) steer clear of cliche or already-plowed ground. That’s a tough gig for a folk singer — folk has always been much more about “passing it on” than it has been concerned with reinvention — but it’s one that new material like the beautifully played “Mariachi” seems more than up to.

DiFranco prefaced the playing of a few well-received “oldies” by suggesting that “listening to my old records is, for me, like opening your high school journal.”

The gist of her rap was that the angry young woman is still there, though she’s learned to look beyond her immediate milieu with the passage of time.

Which is not to suggest that the older songs lacked any of their original fire. On the contrary, DiFranco breathed fresh life into these songs.

Still, it was the new stuff that left the real bite marks. A taut, swaying, soul-fueled number named, I believe, “If You Are Not Getting Happier As You Grow Older You Are [Expletive]) Up,” was a high point of the set. Therein lurks the core the 2010 version of Ani — still on fire, still committed to marrying music with civic duty and social engagement, still breathing hard at the gate of whatever’s possible. But convinced, now, that being miserable is no prerequisite to such commitment.

It is rare to witness a career trajectory like DiFranco’s. She appears to us now as a living embodiment of the independent ethic she’s always espoused.

Concert Review

Ani DiFranco

Monday night at Asbury Hall at Babeville 341 Delaware Ave.