How do I merge a git tag onto a branch

You mean this?

git checkout destination_branch
git merge tag_name

Remember before you merge you need to update the tag, it's quite different from branches (git pull origin tag_name won't update your local tags). Thus, you need the following command:

git fetch --tags origin

Then you can perform git merge tag_name to merge the tag onto a branch.

This is the only comprehensive and reliable way I've found to do this.

Assume you want to merge "tag_1.0" into "mybranch".

    $git checkout tag_1.0 (will create a headless branch)
    $git branch -D tagbranch (make sure this branch doesn't already exist locally)
    $git checkout -b tagbranch
    $git merge -s ours mybranch
    $git commit -am "updated mybranch with tag_1.0"
    $git checkout mybranch
    $git merge tagbranch

Just complementing the answer.

Merging the last tag on a branch:

git checkout my-branch
git merge $(git describe --tags $(git rev-list --tags --max-count=1))

Inspired by https://gist.github.com/rponte/fdc0724dd984088606b0