Grid: quarter-hour; meta: obtained a nudge 

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Start in Fear” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re on the lookout for a five-letter phrase associated to Halloween. There had been 5 starred theme entries:

• 1A [*Deck material]: TEAK
• 20A [*Baked Alaska layer]: MERINGUE
• 35A [*Mock]: TEASE
• 47A [*Touched tenderly]: CARESSED
• 60A [*Garamond or Goudy Old Style, e.g.]: FONT
  

  WSJ Contest – 10.28.22 – answer

I spun my wheels for some time, and located no traction  on the meta. I requested a pal for a nudge on Sunday, and I lastly discovered the rabbit gap: the 5 themers phonetically match different clues when began by “BOO”:

• BOO TEAK (Boutique): Place to buy ->MART
• BOO FONT (Bouffant): Puffy coiffure -> AFRO
• BOO MERINGUE (Boomerang): Weapon thrown by Aboriginal Australians -> SPEAR
• BOO CARESSED (Bucharest): Capital of a nation on the Black Sea -> KYIV
• BOO TEASE (Booties): Soft footwear -> SOCKS

The mapped grid entries spell MASKS, our contest answer. In hindsight: I noticed the clue for SPEAR and thought, “That should be boomerang,” however I didn’t pursue that rabbit any additional. I additionally didn’t assume to attempt pronunciation (and may have). A clear meta, and 100%-er when you noticed the mechanism. Readers: please let me understand how you made out on this spooky puzzle.