Dataset and script used for the study "The processing of L2 English focus prosody and the role of musical abilities in tone-language listeners". This study investigated the role of musical abilities in the L2 processing of English prosodic focus by native speakers of a tone-language, Mandarin Chinese. In a visual-world eye-tracking paradigm, L1 English and L1 Mandarin Chinese L2 English participants listened to sentences with the focus particle only and a focus-marking pitch accent, which were followed by sentences mentioning the alternative of the focused word. We assessed whether participants anticipated the upcoming focus alternative on the basis of the focus accent, and whether this was influenced by their scores on a music perception test. Results showed limited anticipation in the L1 English group, where higher musical abilities were related to more anticipation. This indicates that listeners with higher musical abilities process prosodic focus in their L1 faster compared to listeners with lower musical abilities. The Mandarin L2 English group demonstrated no prosody-based anticipation, despite showing good focus comprehension. This suggests that differences between Mandarin and English focus prosody, due to their tone- and non-tone status, may lead to L1 interference in L2 processing. We found no effect of musical abilities on L2 focus processing in the Mandarin group. However, associations between music perception and general English proficiency suggest musical abilities may be related to other aspects of second-language prosody.