Season 4 of “Stranger Things” breathtakingly jumped the shark in innumerable ways. And yet somehow it remained compellingly watchable. Once I was able to get into it, that is. And I have to say, all the classical music on the soundtrack was a very nice bonus.

I’m aware that the latest season dropped on Netflix some time ago (in two “volumes,” on May 27 and July 1), but after watching the underwhelming first episode – which, for me, ventured a little too eyerollingly into CW Network-style teen angst – I wound up taking a prolonged break. I tune in to “Stranger Things” for the calculated ‘80s nostalgia and monsters from the Upside-Down, thank you.

Fortunately, at the urging of friends, I finally took it up again in earnest, and sure enough, yet again I found myself caught up in its icky tendrils. It’s been the pattern with this series that there’s been a kind of slow burn at the start that belies the relentless insanity to come. Hats off to the Duffer Brothers, the show’s creators, for their willingness to gamble big, because for as ludicrous as the whole thing has become, they’ve managed to take the series in some truly unexpected directions, while remaining true to its core.

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, one of its most charming characteristics is the way it raids the pop culture of the 1980s (Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Dungeons & Dragons and, this season especially, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Poltergeist” ) and rearranges it in fresh ways. Actor Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself, has a pivotal cameo.

The episode that allows everything that’s been presented in the first three seasons to be viewed in a totally different light (from multiple perspectives, even) is a knockout. But I always go in for that sort of thing when it’s done well. Admittedly, not everyone does. I was one of the few who was delighted with the topsy-turvy “Back to the Future Part II.”

Tonally, Season 4 is all over the place, but that’s kind of become a “Stranger Things” hallmark. Even as the stakes are impossibly high, it’s not afraid to go goofy. For most of its 13-hour running time, the show kept me engaged and laughing.

And what do you know, in this series driven by demons, conspiracy theory, and the paranormal, the KORNGOLD VIOLIN CONCERTO gets a major showcase in Episode 6, when the gang shows up in Salt Lake City to enlist a computer hacker. Her household turns out to be a mash-up of the kinds of theatricals once staged by the Bronte siblings and the March sisters. Wild children cavort with swords and bows-and-arrows and ruffed collars and pasted-on mustaches, while on a portable record player on the floor spins an LP of Korngold’s concerto.

According to the show’s timeline (set in 1985), it would have to be either the Heifetz or Perlman recordings, since I believe those were the only performances available then. But I’m skeptical as to whether or not the creative team was so scrupulous as not to employ a recording of more recent vintage. Of course, now the concerto is in the repertoire of every major violinist.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a former prodigy from Vienna, came to Hollywood in the 1930s, where he achieved wider popularity with his swashbuckling film scores for Errol Flynn classics like “Captain Blood,” “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” and “The Sea Hawk.”

For the average viewer, Kate Bush, Metallica, and Ella Fitzgerald will probably leave the biggest impressions, but Season 4’s soundtrack also sports selections by Verdi, Puccini, Bach, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, and Philip Glass, with Paisiello’s opera “Nina” a major influence on the plot that few will catch. These days, you can’t get much stranger than that!

Heifetz plays the last movement of Korngold’s Violin Concerto