Yup. Looks like a wall hammer that has recceded.
is it normal for the one head to be stripped of it’s little “hammers”?
Is there multiple heads? It looks like one long head, also known as a wall hammer. If it's a wall hammer it's not good at all. If it's branching, not good either but not as bad as the wall hammer. To answer your question, no, it's not normal for the coral to recede like that. Unfortunately, your coral is unhappy. If other corals are doing fine, then we can rule out water quality issues. Is it getting the proper light and flow? Is there a possibility of coral warfare? Was it like this when you got it?
You have not recession but one side shows polyp bailout and can occur from low calcium, insufficient light and mainly too much flow especially if any recent changes were made.
