Are Models singletons in Laravel?

I came across an unexpected / unknown behavior today and maybe it's been there all along and I literally didn't know. It appears that any kind of Model instance is a singleton. Is that correct? It's interesting to know and understand. I've been using Laravel for about 6 years now, code with it regularly and never came across a situation that this came to light.

I've tested a couple ways of making a Model and they all come back as singletons.

Is there a way around this if needed?

Below are a few test code blocks to illustrate.

public function index(Request $request)
    {
        $p = (new Project)->make(['name' => 'New Project']);
        dump($p->name); // Returns 'New Project'.
        $new_p = $this->something($p);
        dump($new_p->name); //Returns 'something different'.
        dd($p->name); // Returns 'something different' also.
    }

public function something($project)
    {
        $project->name = 'something different';
        return $project;
    }

public function index(Request $request)
    {
        $p = Project::make(['name' => 'New Project']);
        dump($p->name); // Returns 'New Project'.
        $new_p = $this->something($p);
        dump($new_p->name); //Returns 'something different'.
        dd($p->name); // Returns 'something different' also.
    }

public function something($project)
    {
        $project->name = 'something different';
        return $project;
    }

public function index(Request $request)
    {
        $p = Project::make(['name' => 'New Project']);
        dump($p->name); // Returns 'New Project'.
        $this->something($p); // NOT assigning a new var reference
        dd($p->name); // Returns 'something different' also.
    }

public function something($project)
    {
        $project->name = 'something different';
    }

public function index(Request $request)
    {
        $p = Project::find(1);
        dump($p->name); // Returns 'New Project' from database.
        $new_p = $this->something($p);
        dump($new_p->name); //Returns 'something different'.
        dd($p->name); // Returns 'something different' also.
    }

public function something($project)
    {
        $project->name = 'something different';
        return $project;
    }