Learn Spanish (Spain): Lo que me agrada es el encanto de la ciudad. - What pleases me is the charm of the city.

This is a pseudo-cleft sentence, which is used to put a spotlight on a specific piece of information. By using the Lo que... es... structure, you are emphasizing that the charm of the city is the specific thing that pleases you, translating directly to "What pleases me is...".

If I were pleased by multiple things, like the buildings, would es change to son?

Yes! In these lo que structures, the verb ser (to be) typically agrees with the "focus" of the sentence, which is the thing that comes after it. If you said "What pleases me are the buildings," it would be Lo que me agrada son los edificios. Because el encanto is singular, we use es.

Does agradar work exactly like gustar here?

Yes, grammatically it works the exact same way. The thing doing the pleasing is the subject, and you are the indirect object receiving that feeling (me). However, agradar (to please) is slightly more formal or elevated than the everyday gustar (to like).

Can I flip the sentence structure and put lo que at the end?

Absolutely. You can say El encanto de la ciudad es lo que me agrada (The charm of the city is what pleases me). The core meaning stays the same, but the flow of the conversation changes depending on whether you want to introduce the "charm" first or build up to it.