You can probably use overload to overload the use of your objects(!) as arrayrefs and hashrefs. See the cookbook section on "Two-face references" for an example.

However, your (whole) array context will need to look like this:

@names = @{$root->{'var'}->{'spool'}};   # List of files/dirs
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(Which to my mind is a plus; having a hash element lookup return a list is at best just too surprising and at worst downright abuse of syntax. YMMV.)