Strange case of truly invisible file (?) and undeletable directory on macOS
Solution 1:
I filed a bug report with Apple and this seems to finally be fixed now in Mojave 10.14.4 (18E226).
To fix, update your OS to the latest version. Then reboot into recovery (CMD-R) and run disk first aid.
It should show one or more error: directory valence check: directory (oid 0x123456): nchildren (1) does not match drec count (0)
and / or error: nchildren of inode object (id 12345678) does not match expected value
and repair them.
Once it is done, reboot into OS X and you should finally be able to delete the folder normally!