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These five projects — a combination of celebrity portraits, true-crime thrillers and oddball sagas — suggest the breadth of HBO Documentary Films’ strategy for an art form that has blossomed on the small screen.

It’s tantalizingly oddball and indelicate: a combined daymare and night odyssey that scratches until a feral hidden strength is revealed in the misfit main character, captivatingly played by Indian star Radhika Apte.

Speaking of oddball energy, musical guests Arcade Fire performed “Pink Elephant” and “Year of the Snake.”

They wind up getting cast, under strained dramatic circumstances, in the school musical, and a romance of sensitive oddballs blossoms.

As a result, artists, small-business owners and residents are creating their own iterations, guided by their niche interests and oddball senses of humor.