One call site is ill-typed, but GHC reports a type error at every call site, not just the problematic one. In the original code, the problem occurred with a very common function (Data.Lens.view), so the avalanche of error messages made it difficult to find the problematic call site.

{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances, FunctionalDependencies, MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
module Bug where

class FunDep lista a | lista -> a
instance FunDep [a] a

singleton :: FunDep lista a => a -> lista
singleton _ = undefined

-- this error is expected:
--   Couldn't match type 'Char' with '()'
--   arising from a functional dependency between
--     constraint 'FunDep [Char] ()' arising from a use of 'singleton'
--     instance 'FunDep [a] a'
illTyped :: [Char]
illTyped = singleton ()

-- but this one is not:
--   Couldn't match type '()' with 'Char'
--     arising from a functional dependency between constraints:
--       'FunDep [Char] Char' arising from a use of 'singleton' (in 'wellTyped')
--       'FunDep [Char] ()' arising from a use of 'singleton' (in 'illTyped')
wellTyped :: [Char]
wellTyped = singleton 'a'

The spurious error disappears if illTyped is commented out or moved after wellTyped.