e.g. https://musicbrainz.org/recording/5f04c423-51c7-4309-8e56-72cd6166b9bd
The join phrase is '(duet with ’ and then ‘)’, I always thought the join phrase went between two artists, but in this case it extends past the last artist.
Is this valid ?
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Yes, it’s quite common when the credit itself calls for it. Like in this case, there is no other way to mark it as a duet in the same way it is (presumably) marked on the release itself. You’ll need the closing bracket.
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Seems sensible that “Barry Manilow (duet with Exposé)” is correct. This gives both artists as searchable, allows the release to appear under both artists, and still gives the same correct text for the track as per the case.
I assume Manilow wanted to take the main credit here - thereby kicking Exposé into the brackets.
The reason for those “extra” join phrases is so it looks correct when displayed while a computer can still spot the important information. The “join” stuff is really just so it looks pretty and readable to use humans. 
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HI, yes I realize the reasons for joins and everything but usually it something more like ‘Barry Manilow duet with Expose’, but if that is valid that is fine.
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I think the brackets are there to handle the size of Manilow’s ego. To me I read that as he is trying to keep Exposé as unimportant.
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That actually would read ungrammatically with me - it would need either the parentheses or “in duet with” to make proper sense. But maybe it’s just me 
Anyway, languages like Estonian require “hanging” join phrases like this (“with” in Estonian is the suffix “-ga”, so you do need to add that suffix after the artist name )
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