‘The Voice’ recap: Highlights from the Season 9 finale

Jordan Smith won Season 9 of “The Voice” on Tuesday. That much you definitely know — and probably expected. But that didn’t happen until the very final minutes of the finale. What else happened during the two-hour, performance-packed show?

Here are some highlights:

1) The Top 24 performed Major Lazer’s “Lean On,” dressed in crisp whites — and showing off what a deep bench of talent there was this year. So many gifted singers. It’s a shame more of them weren’t able to stick around longer.

2) Barrett Baber, who eventually came in third overall, brought back his fellow Team Blake member Zach Seabaugh, who he said was like a “little brother” to him, to sing Randy Travis’ “Forever and Ever, Amen” — and they shared a sweet bro-hug afterward. Aw, big country-dude hearts.

3) Coldplay’s psychedelic performance of “Adventure of a Lifetime” brought the evening’s strangest moment: dancers dressed as gorillas in the coaches chairs, who then got up and boogied down onstage. Poor “Voice” coaches — they came so far in the season, only to be unseated by a bunch of hairy apes. Hope the big monkeys at least left the leather clean.

4) The pre-taped sequence about Blake Shelton as a country-music mafia don? So spot-on and funny.

5) Gwen Stefani truly is a crier. Maybe she had to change outfits so many times (at least four) during the finale because she kept soaking them with tears.

6) Emily Ann Roberts, this season’s runner-up, truly looked and sounded like an old-school pro dueting with country and bluegrass icon Ricky Scaggs on his song “Country Boy.” And that fiddler! It was like a visit to the Grand Ole Opry, where Roberts is bound to be headed soon.

7) Jeffery Austin, who finished in fourth place, brought back his “girl” Madi Davis, after first paying tribute to her remarkable musicianship. She “knows more as a musician and a vocalist at 16 than I do at 24,” he said. Love her. Truly a favorite. But she seemed to be having a hard time keeping her hat on during her duet with Austin, on Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry on Their Own,” making me think it really might be time for her to lose her trademark hat altogether. Maybe the floppy chapeau is holding her back? Because it’s sure not her singing.

8) The production values on Missy Elliot’s collaboration with Pharrell Williams — “WTF (Where They From)” were tip top: the puppets, the subway set, the dancer spinning on his head.

9) How lovely was it to see Usher back on “The Voice”? Very lovely. His performance of “Without You” with Smith was pitch-perfect in every way, including that crazy-long note Smith held near the end. I mean, crazy. Do you suppose Usher made him do pushups during rehearsals to build stamina like he used to do with his own “Voice” team members when he was a coach?

10) Great line from Stefani during a taped segment in which the coaches competed on the go-cart (bumper car?) track: “I’ve been to a bunch of birthday parties here, so I know how this thing works.” #momadvantage

11) Did you know Regina Love is Smith’s “spirit animal”? Now we all do.

12) Hey, Adam Levine did do better than that cuddly plush toy when he promised to get Shelby Brown a giraffe: We learned Tuesday night that he actually had a real giraffe led onto the back lot to surprise her. Her response was priceless.

Oh, yeah, and Justin Bieber showed up to tell us he was “Sorry.” (Apology accepted?)

So that’s another season of “The Voice” in the rear-view mirror. Thank you for reading, happy holidays, and see you in the spring!