Why can't I destroy this energy barrier with my melee attack?

It could be a colour blind issue. As I know, there are two different kind of barriers: red and orange.

Red energy barriers can be destroyed with a strike of your Atropian Blade (your melee weapon).

To open orange energy barriers (the one in your GIF) you also need to purchase the Blade Balancer Artifact from a Fabricator. It costs 250 Obolites and has the vague in-game description:

Enables a more powerful melee attack.

Once you’ve purchased this, you can then walk over to the orange barriers and press Square to use your melee attack to slice through them.

Source: Twinfinite.