Pa. native Sabrina Carpenter sings her hit songs, joins a sketch during 'SNL' debut

Pop star Sabrina Carpenter, who grew up in the Philly suburbs, made her "Saturday Night Live" debut this weekend during the show's Season 49 finale.

During Saturday's episode, hosted by Jake Gyllenhaal, the singer performed her hit song "Espresso" as well as a mashup of her songs "Feather" and "Nonsense." Carpenter also joined a Scooby-Doo themed sketch.

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The episode began with a cold open in which cast member James Austin Johnson portrayed Donald Trump. He snuck in a quip about "Espresso," possibly foreshadowing one of Carpenter's song choices for the evening. Before Carpenter sang about "that me espresso," though, she joined a sketch.

Along with her music career, Carpenter also is an actress who's best-known role was in the Disney Channel series "Girl Meets World" — a reboot of '90s Philly-based sitcom "Boy Meets World" — which ran from 2014 to 2017. She showed off her acting skills during a Scooby-Doo inspired sketch.

In the sketch, titled "Scooby-Doo," Carpenter portrayed Mystery Inc. fashionista Daphne Blake, with her signature purple dress and red hair. After the crew solves a mystery, things quickly get gory after they try to unmask the villain, literally.

For her first musical performance of the night, Carpenter wore a red minidress while she sang "Espresso" on a bar-themed set, faux espresso martini in hand. She released the song, which is her first to hit the Billboard top 10, last month and it's already being called a front-runner for the song of the summer. 

Later, Carpenter wore a feathered bodysuit as she sang and danced to a medley of "Nonsense" and "Feather." The two songs played a large role in the success of her 2022 fifth studio album "Emails I Can't Send." In the pop star's typical fashion, she changed the lyrics to the outro of "Nonsense" to reflect where she was performing. In this case, the outro included some cheeky "SNL" jokes.

Carpenter's "SNL" gig comes in the wake of her Coachella debut, as well as her run as the opener for a string of international dates on Taylor Swift's Eras Tour — which she previously attended in Philadelphia as a fan and famous friend of Swift herself. The 25-year-old singer was born in Quakertown, Bucks County, and grew up in East Greenville, Montgomery County, where she was homeschooled.

The "SNL" Season 49 finale can be streamed on Peacock.