I had to mess with this for the generic rest stuff I did on the 23rd. It is expecting a properties key at the first level. Here's what part of my meltano.yml file looks like (where I put the schema in the file):

config:
        common_parameters:
          us_earthquakes:
            api_url: <https://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws>
            path: /event/1/query
            params:
              format: geojson
              starttime: "2014-01-01"
              endtime: "2014-01-02"
              minmagnitude: 1
            primary_keys:
              - id
            records_path: "$.features[*]"
            num_inference_records: 100
            select:
              - "*.*"
        schemas:
          us_earthquakes:
            properties:
              geometry_coordinates:
                type: string
              geometry_type:
                type: string
              id:
                type: string
              properties_alert:
                type:
                  - "null"
                  - string