Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry shows the teen artist’s ascent to fame through her own eyes

It’s one of the curious paradoxes of contemporary pop stardom: social media offers audiences access to the kind of intimate details of performers’ lives that would be unthinkable in another era, yet it theoretically affords the stars near-complete control of their public image — allowing them to circumvent traditional media for a direct dialogue with their fans.

The new documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, which follows the teenage singer as she records her debut album and blows up to global superstardom, arrives at a moment when the world seems to be having a moment of collective — if sometimes disingenuous — regret over its treatment of Britney Spears, whose hounding at the hands of the press is a reminder of…