So I was able to merge once I realized that it doesn’t appear in the Search context for artists but ONLY if you actually go to the artists view/pivot under music.
So yeah…this workaround works but it’s still weird that it wanted to show up as another artist.
As far as the tags…they aren’t any different than any other album for that artist. Yeah they are all in folders under the artist…I previously deleted the problem album folder and tried to copy in a new one (Plex dance) with metadata strings pre-overwritten into this problem album from a working one. So basically the tags were all the same, same strings/characters, no extra/missing tags…but still saw it as a distinct artist somehow.
Will see if it happens with the next new album I add (would point to some regression possibly).
Thanks!