If 思われる is "its own verb," meaning "to seem; to appear," and is independent of the separate verb 思う, meaning "to think," is there a conceptual relation between the two? I ask because I initially thought 思われる to be the passive form of 思う. Would it be wrong to think of 思われる meaning "it is thought" rather than "it seems"?
意外に思われるかもしれません。 This may surprise you.
このことは、私たちにはとても不思議に思われる。 This appears very strange to us.
そのようなプロジェクトを経た後では、すべてがはるかにたやすいように思われる。 Having come from something like the project, it seems like everything is a lot easier.
それは私には奇妙に思われる。 It seems strange to me.
彼女はとても年をとっているように思われる。 She seems (to me) (to be) a very old woman.
Answer
I've been thinking about various different sentences that include 思われる to see if any of them feel like a distinctive word of its own, and my feeling is that the answer is no.
思う does mean "to think", as in "明日は雨だと思う / I think it'll rain tomorrow", and thus its passive form 思われる means "it is thought". The passiveness would be amplified when it is used without a specific subject, making it ambiguous as to who is thinking. Doing this creates a sense that the thought is shared by many/all/everyone, as in "情勢は不利だと思われる / the situation does not appear good." It makes the sentence feel more objective, and I think this is the effect that's making you feel that it has a separate meaning.
In contrast, when 思われる is used with a specific subject, it's easy to see that it's the passive form of 思う. This is true even when the subject is implied, as in "バカだと思われるよ / [he will] think you are stupid."
Note that 思われる is also a polite form (尊敬語) of 思う, as in "どう思われますか？ / What do you think?". The example of "意外に思われるかもしれません" that you cited is also this usage.
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