Autumn might have set in on Regent Street, but the Kemia Bar was as balmy as an evening in Ipanema. “Phew, it’s warm in here,” said Sabrina Malheiros, fanning her face with her hand. “It’s a real Brazilian night.” This was a surprisingly intimate UK debut for Malheiros, who probably hadn’t reckoned on performing in a living room-sized space, hemmed in by a towering crowd. “We don’t have places like this in Brazil,” she added, then got to grips with its difficult acoustics.

Despite her reputation as Rio’s reigning princess of nu-bossa, that 21st-century mix of bossa nova, samba and electronica, Malheiros began nervously. Opening track Terra de Ninguem saw her voice lost amid over-loud accompaniment from a talented trio on keyboards, bass guitar and kit drums.

The 29-year-old cruised for a bit on likeability: smiling, clapping, sashaying goofily in her little black dress. A few songs in and all were in their stride, with Malheiros proving why her current record New Morning (Far Out Records) has been widely deemed the best album of the summer.

As the daughter of Alex Malheiros, bassist with legendary Brazilian band Azymuth (and co-writer of many of her songs), Sabrina was born to perform. Her wide-ranging vocals and classic bossa nova phrasing, a hypnotic lilt here, some scat syllables there, are as true to the tradition as, say, Astrud Gilberto was some 50 years ago. But just as Bebel Gilberto, João’s daughter, did with the hugely popular Tanto Tempo back in 2000, she has updated it with disco, house and whatever else takes her fancy. As have a veritable netball team of Brazilian babes, Céu and Cibelle among them.

Even without the strings and brass on her album, Malheiros and her trio created a sophisticated, multi-textured sound around a bossa samba core. An orchestral swirl from a synth made way for the infectious jazz-funk of Maracatueira, a track from her 2005 debut Equilibria that had Malheiros cupping the mic to heavy breathe.

Twisting her waist-length hair, shaking a tiny red maraca and wolf whistling the keyboard wig-outs of Chico Chargas, Malheiros grew more endearing and her voice more resonant as the set progressed. By the anthemic Connexão, the first of two encores, everyone was moving.