LATERAL deixa a subquery referenciar colunas da query externa. Útil para “top-N por grupo”:

SELECT u.id, recent.*
FROM users u
CROSS JOIN LATERAL (
  SELECT created_at, amount
  FROM payments p
  WHERE p.user_id = u.id
  ORDER BY created_at DESC
  LIMIT 3
) AS recent;

Cada linha de users recebe as 3 últimas payments dela.