normal maps in decal material change the color

I cant figure out for the life of me why when I add a normal map to some materials it makes the color brighter. for example i attached what is happening.

I used the same exact color as my landscape texture, but it seems to make it brighter. I tried rotating it in case the uvs were angled different than world space. that didn’t work. I swapped it to world position offset and same thing. Metallic and specular is at 0 with a constant.

Any Ideas?