In the past two years, the Hallowbaloo Music & Arts Festival has morphed from a Chinatown street party to a festival spanning the Honolulu Arts District. To organizer Mark Tarone, the big downtown bash is a celebration of everything great about Halloween in Hawaii.

“The purpose of Hallowbaloo is to give Hawaii residents and visitors a great showcase for Hawaii’s Halloween spirit, and also great music — both local artists and national artists,” Tarone said. “Halloween here is very special. There might be places that are equal to our spirit here, but there’s no place that’s better.”

That’s not complete hype. In a recent survey by the website wallethub.com, Honolulu ranked No. 18 in the country among 2016’s Best Cities for Halloween. That ranking was weighted by Honolulu’s incongruous Halloween weather — warm, humid nights were no comparison to the brisk autumns of most mainland cities, placing it No. 60 — and by its low Trick-or-Treater Friendliness score, which might be affected by the high number of apartment dwellers here. (No. 57 for the capital of the Aloha State? C’mon, folks!)

Honolulu ranks No. 4 in Halloween Parties & Activities nationwide, and that’s where Hallowbaloo fills the bill. On Saturday, Hallowbaloo takes place in three separate but easy-to-reach locales: the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and surrounding streets, which will host a street festival from afternoon through night; Chinatown, the original site with its eight participating bars and clubs; and the Aloha Tower Marketplace, where three additional establishments host festivities this year. Trolleys will carry partyers from site to site between 8 and 11 p.m., while the streets adjacent to the HiSAM and Hotel Street are closed to vehicle traffic.

Tarone characterized the three venues as part of a “story” that describes the event. “The driving mission from the outset was to tell the story of Chinatown,” he said. “But when we looked around us, we realized that really wasn’t complete.

“The story really is historic Honolulu. It’s the regal section, where you have the palace and everything that grew up around it, and then Chinatown, the blue-collar section. … And then Aloha Tower completes the story. That’s the place of embarkation and arrival.”

While each locale will offer an enticing mix of DJs, dancing, live music, food, drink, games and entertainment, the street festival centered at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and the surrounding environs is considered the focal event. The site will host the Hallowbaloo Ball inside the museum, along with a dance area featuring DJs and a main stage. Singer-songwriter Mareko kicks off main-stage festivities at 4:45 p.m., followed by Paul Izak, Makana and Tavana, each playing 25- to 30-minute sets.

The street festival will also have food booths, drink stations and a street cabaret area (on the makai side of Richards Street), where interactive activities like body art and a costume contest (scheduled for 8:30 p.m.) will be held. “Sometimes the musicians will be out in the crowd,” Tarone said. “There will be no barrier between the stage and the audience. There’s not even a tent over it, because that creates a visual barrier.”

The street festival will also feature Erykah Badu, multiple Grammy winner in R&B and soul. She will be performing as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown, an alter ego of sorts that she created to avoid confusion with her persona as singer-songwriter. Although the artist and her sets can be unpredictable, one YouTube video suggests it will be blend of soul, hip-hop and turntabling.

Badu is set to perform at 7:15 p.m. on the main stage and at midnight at the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant at Aloha Tower.

Tarone said Badu, with her outspoken, artistic persona, is a good match for Hallowbaloo.

“What I love about Erykah Badu is that from the get-go she’s been a social activist, and she’s had great social messages,” he said. “If you look at her site, it’s just one fundraiser after another.”

Tarone is also enthusiastic about guitarist Charlie Hunter, who’s scheduled to perform with drummer Scott Amendola at 8 p.m. on the HiSAM lawn after Badu’s DJ set. “He’s one of the greatest guitarists in the world, really,” Tarone said, adding that Hunter has been considered a significant “jam band” performer “for 20 years.”

“What’s particularly unique about him is he plays a special electric guitar,” Tarone said. “He doesn’t play with a bassist — he is the bassist. And he’s not just playing the bass notes, he’s doing the full bass line,” accomplished by a seventh string on his guitar, two pickups on his guitar and two amplifiers.

Among the headliners is DJ D Sharp, who performs at 10 p.m. at Gordon Biersch. D Sharp is the resident DJ of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, providing the background music to Steph Curry’s spectacular pregame routine.

“When I looked into him, I loved him,” Tarone said. “When Curry’s doing his amazing warmup drills, he’s on the floor, and then for the game they have him up in the balcony up on this platform, and he’s spinning all the music during breaks of the game.”

Tarone, 46, has been a big lover of Halloween since his college days. He said he’s especially pleased that Hallowbaloo attracts a diverse crowd, young and old, working class to educated elite, meaning that he’s put together the right mix of talent and amusements.

Tarone’s T-Rx Entertainment founded Hallowbaloo in 2008. “We’ve been doing surveys for five years, maybe longer,” he said. “Fifty percent of the people at the street festival last year were 35 years old or older, and over 90 percent had a two-year degree or higher.

“In a lot of places, when people think street festival, they think young. That’s actually not the case with us.”

Families and children may enjoy the earlier part of the festival; those 21 and over can bar-hop between locations after 9. At every site, costumes and creativity are encouraged.