So at first I didn't realize that I had to 'record' audio into it to use it as a plugin rather than 'send' a clip to it like in V-Vocal (which I am sorely missing right now). Not sure why that is, but ok. It took me a while to figure out whether blinking 'transfer' meant 'ready to record' or 'click here to be ready to record'. One of the least intuitive interfaces I've ever seen.
 
So now what it's doing is a) 'recording' it way late on the Melodyne timeline and running out of room before the audio I need to process is finished and b) recording a straight line as if it's all one pitch and then finally c) hanging, or something, with all options grayed out and a circle with a line halfway through it. 
 
Halp.

Ok, so I think I may have figured it out. I clicked 'transfer' again to shut off 'recording' before stopping Sonar transport and now I see the notes in the Melodyne editor like I apparently should. 
 
And now I see I go through region fx, and it does work like v-vocal did, plus there's v-vocal too. OK. 
 
Never mind, nothing to see here, move along.