I don't play casters much myself, but arcane casters that melee are the Magus and the Blood Rager. Bards might also qualify to some extent.
Im not a fan of the Blood Rager, as a barbarian that can cast spells even while raging sounds a bit on the "stronger than most base classes" side of the spectrum... :P
The most obvious answer here is to make a Magus, but they don't get a whole lot of Necromancy toys. Bards can be capable melee fighters as well (especially the Arcane Duelist, who can eventually wear heavy armor), but their spells are even farther from the mark than Magus'. Bloodrager is your top tier melee fighter who also happens to cast Arcane spells, and you can really flavor them up with Bloodlines to be closer to a dark warlock-ee theme, but their offensive spells aren't going to stick very often, due to their lower caster level and slower spell progression. Summoners could be a cool class to flavor into a dark magical fighter; you can have your Eidolon visually match that theme, and flavor it as some sort of dark conduit from which you gain your powers. Most of the Summoner's spells involve buffing/supporting your Eidolon, which feeds right into that theme, plus, they're not too shabby in melee, even though lots of people seem to forget that.
I think your best bet is the Warlock Vigilante. They're at the same level of melee proficiency as the Bard or Summoner, and though you're not going to be blending your spells with your melee attacks like a Magus, the Warlock's spell list is directly pulled from the Wizard spell list, which is easily the closest to what you seem to be looking for. They get a great melee/ranged attack baked into their class called Mystic Bolts (think of Doctor Strange's weird energy tendril thing he uses in the Marvel movie). Plus, you get the added flavor of the Vigilante's secret identity feature, which I suppose you can just ignore if you don't want to bother with that side of the class. They're proficient in Light armor and Shields (but not Tower Shields).
As for race, you want to look for weapon proficiencies, since that's going to be your biggest handicap when it comes to keeping up in the melee damage department, so your best bet is either Half-orc for Greataxe proficiency, or Half-elf for proficiency with a single Exotic weapon. Hobgoblins can also gain proficiency with a single Martial weapon, though you'd need GM permission to play one. The Warlock doesn't really need a weapon with his Mystic Bolts, and once they start targeting Touch AC, the lower damage die won't matter so much because you'll be hitting so often.
If the casting doesn't necessarily need to be Arcane, you'd have a way easier time fitting this roll with a Cleric or Warpriest. They can wear heavier armor than arcane casters, and they have much better survivability with their healing spells, and though they don't get much in the Evocation department, they have Abjuration and Necromancy covered very nicely.
Hexcrafter Magus certainly has a 'Warlock' feel to it. Plenty of 'dark' magic.
Eldritch Knight is certainly a possibility here. You have to pretty much choose either melee or magic each round, unlike the combine option of the Magus, but you can achieve decent melee and powerful spell casting with any focus you desire.
I know you said 'arcane' but you are looking at CHR classes and I'll put up Oracle. Although of course they technically cast divine magic, they do so without being tied to a god and could certainly be built with a very dark flavor and the curse could work well with that too (Demonic or Hellbound seem thematic). Battle Mystery is pretty obvious and works well for melee focused and you would have 9 levels of spells, ability to cast in armor without messing around and a very large spell list that should accommodate just about anything you want.
3/4 BAB, 9 levels of Spells including plenty of necromancy, Class Ability Melee Augmentations, Heavy Armor Potential; Makes a pretty good Dark Knight.
Also something to think about is psychic casters. There are several psychic casting classes that can fight decently well. Psychic magic comes with it's own bag of problems, but arcane spell failure isn't one of them.
Some good choices if that's an option are phantom blade spiritualist, mesmerist (vox archetype trades thought components for verbal which can be very nice), the occultist in general, also the psychic detective investigator.
Shielded Mage is a fantastic feat for a tanky arcane caster; I'm amazed nobody mentioned it. Two feats, and you can wield a weapon and shield without it affecting spellcasting at all - while also gaining a bonus to shield AC from Shield Focus. Add in Arcane Armor Training (just the first one) and a Wizard or other pure arcane caster can wear a mithral kikko and use a heavy shield with Shield Focus with zero problems.
Two big things to note with a pure-class caster/combat hybrid: there are several ways to get Divine Favor and maybe Divine Power on a full arcane casting class, and you can use the feat Artful Dodge to base TWF off of INT instead of DEX. If you have enough feats, you can easily build a tanky weapon/shield TWF melee/caster character out of an Eldritch Knight or whatever other Prestige Class. And Fighter + Arcane Caster + Eldritch Knight has plenty of bonus feats.
Basic Example: "Warlock Knight"
Fighter 1/ Strength Patron Witch 6/ Eldritch Knight 4
Dual Talent Human: 15/17STR, 12DEX, 14CON, 15/17INT, 10WIS, 9CHA
Traits: Fate's Favored, Magical Knack
1F. +Shield Focus / Shielded Mage
2W
3W. Artful Dodge
4W
5W. Two-Weapon Fighting
6W
7EK. +Improved Shield Bash / Arcane Armor Training
8W.
9EK. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Weapons: +3 longsword and spiked heavy shield with Effortless Lace and Greater Magic Weapon cast on it.
The Divine buffing plus Heroism means TWF is pretty powerful, mithral kikko and a Shield Focus heavy shield make for strong AC, and eventually full spell level -2 leaves 6-level casters in the dust - this is ultimately a 9th level spellcaster.
for any caster (especially if they go into melee) grab clawhand shield asap:
+2 heavy shield (so +4 ac) with no armor or casting check penalty, it cast for you so don't need a free hand (other then to hold the shield that is) and it deal damage automatically if some1 grapple\pin\swallow you -caster's feared nightmare.("without requiring a successful combat maneuver check to do so. ")
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Mithral bucklers have no arcane spell failure and can be worn by bacisally anybody you can the switch your weapon to the hand to cast. Not feats needed.
Make it spell storing and put firiD touch on it. Do the same with a haramaki that's how you tank up an arcane caster. Also get a protector familair to increase the damage you can take.
Also, if talking 6-level casters, the Dawnflower Dervish's doubled Inspire Courage bonuses and Bard spells can create a very strong weapon/shield TWF character in a mithral breastplate. And they have an ability to cast two heal spells in one round in an emergency.
The Synthesist Summoner can be pretty tanky.
The Lorekeeper Oracle can learn Wizard spells, even though it's a divine caster. Add the Spirit Guide Archetypes on top and you can have Hexes and some more spells from your spirit.
Mithral bucklers have no arcane spell failure and can be worn by bacisally anybody you can the switch your weapon to the hand to cast. Not feats needed.
Make it spell storing and put firiD touch on it. Do the same with a haramaki that's how you tank up an arcane caster. Also get a protector familair to increase the damage you can take.
for starters mithril buckler is cool and less expansive. i recomanded the clawhand (which also doesn't take a feat as it also got no ac panelty) for later on for higher ac and abiity to use that hand for casting without loosing the buckler ac (as you do if u use the hand holding the bukcler for anthiing but defense.) also the free hit on manvers.
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According to the buckler entry only attack and casting using that hand to cast spells causes you to loser the AC. There is nothing about holding things. Some people house rule using that hand for anything other than holding a shield but that it outside the text.
Think about it this way. You want to wear a buckler and twf but only twf when it is easy to hit flatfooted or trip whatever the build is. So, you hold you kukri inthe buckler hand. You still have the ac until the round you attack with it and the round you don't attack with it you get your ac back.
You can hold a rod in that or a potion no as long as you don't attack with it or cast with that hand.
The Mithril buckler is a worse choice for some builds like some magus builds, but for the cleric who can pass the weapon to the buckler hand and cast with the weapon hand, then passage weapon back, or an wizard that that has a free hand it's much better.
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Also, if talking 6-level casters, the Dawnflower Dervish's doubled Inspire Courage bonuses and Bard spells can create a very strong weapon/shield TWF character in a mithral breastplate. And they have an ability to cast two heal spells in one round in an emergency.
The only drawback is that the Dawnflower Dervish might not fit the OP's desired flavour; other than that, I whole-heatedly agree. Even better than using Meditative Whirl to cast two healing spells in a round, is to re-cast Mirror Image and heal at the same time. Halfling is the optimal race (assuming you stick with dex-based attacks).
I am playing the class as a more traditional one-handed scimitar user in Hell's Rebels, where my character is the party's primary front-liner (I took Toughness as my first feat). It's working very well so far.