I'm sure there are whales or groups of investors who are trying to manipulate the prices of coins with low market cap. Such situations will always happen. However, the overall trend is improving and it looks like the bulls have come back to push the price for new ATH.
For low cap coins, they really are easy to manipulate. That's why if you're investing on those coins whether it's bull market or bear.
You still have to be careful and do not be too excited that you'll gain tremendously with those because they're the ones that are very prone to pump and dump.