Unity material pipeline

Hello,
I haven’t used Unity in a while and am confused with the new material system for importing FBX files. When I import the file, the material settings are ghosted and I cannot drag materials onto my model. I want to be able to apply the same material to many objects, but I cannot figure out how to do this without just duplicating the material. If anyone knows how to do this, that would be great!
Thanks!

Hoping to bump this for a response.