The singer overcame a series of early hitches that looked like they might derail the set before it had got going.
He had to restart his first song three times and his second song once.
He's already cancelled a series of shows this year. Here, he relaxed after the stuttering start - although the downbeat performance split opinion.
Devotees loved the rare opportunity to connect with an idol whose unpredictability and vulnerability only makes him more precious.
But lots of fans drifted away during the set, especially during a disjointed and meandering first half.
He started half an hour late, which heightened the suspense about whether or not he would appear at all following his recent spate of cancellations.
He has scrapped festival appearances at Primavera in Spain, Hangout in Alabama and Sasquatch in Washington due to "production delays".
But he returned to the stage at Northside in Denmark on Friday and then in Manchester two days later.
He started the Parklife set with Solo, from last year's Blonde album, but stopped the song three times, at one point complaining about the chunky headphones he wore throughout the show.
After eventually making it to the end of that song, he moved into Chanel - but restarted that too despite having virtually made it to the end.
Things got a bit easier after that, and he ended up performing for one hour 15 minutes.

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So for the players of Hawk Green 1st XI from Marple, it might have been something of a dream to have a bowl at Michael Vaughan or face a Devon Malcolm delivery.
But on a sunny evening in Cheshire, Vaughan, joined by an England legends team including Malcolm, Neil Fairbrother and Adam Hollioake amongst others, turned out to take on Hawk Green's finest on their own turf.
Having done a coaching session with the club's youngsters and a Q&A session the England Legends were put into bat first in this Twenty20 encounter, one of three matches the legends have scheduled in order to raise funds for grass roots cricket.
Vaughan fell for 17 as the home side made an encouraging start with the ball but the form of Mal Loye, who top-scored for England Legends with 117, ensured the visitors set a tough mark of 194.
It was a target which, despite Justin Blackhurst's impressive 88, proved to be too much for the Derbyshire and Cheshire League outfit, who could only make 165 in 20 overs to leave the legends once again victorious. Scorecard.
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The company's boss has outlined new plans for the social network.
One will let you see what you missed while you were offline, say sleeping.
"We can use information like who you follow and what you engage with to surface highlights of what you missed and show those to you as soon as you log back in or come back to the app," Twitter explained in a blog post.
Another new function could filter tweets, making the app more like Facebook by sifting through the content posted by your friends to find the pictures and jokes it thinks you will be most interested in.
This may be unpopular with the users who enjoy the chronological nature of the social network.
The change you'll see soonest affects direct messaging. It's not yet clear what the changes will be, but according to Twitter it has "several updates coming that will make it easy to take a public conversation private".
The first of these will begin rolling out next week: the ability to share and discuss Tweets natively and privately via Direct Messages.
Twitter says it will allow you to upload your own videos directly to the timeline by the beginning of 2015.
It also hopes to make it easier for people who are just joining the site by providing them with a ready-made list of people to follow.
Twitter described it as "an instant, personalized timeline for new users who don't want to spend time cultivating one on their own".
The company admitted that about 125 million people go to Twitter's homepage each month and decide not to sign up,
Twitter's new features were mentioned by boss, Dick Costolo, at an investor day.
The changes are important to Twitter's financial future, given the competition it faces from other social media companies, and the stock price rose after Mr Costolo spoke.
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Frank Ocean, one of pop music's biggest enigmas, has played his first UK gig in three years as Sunday's headliner at the Parklife festival in Manchester.
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They have graced the finest cricket stadia all over the world, played for England against the greatest players and come out on top.
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It looks like Twitter's changing and maybe, just maybe, it'll ease your #FOMO (fear of missing out).