Dark theme navbar: Lighter or darker than the main background?

I don't have a lot of UI/UX experience and am trying to learn as I work on my personal website.

With a light background, I 100% agree with the advice to use a darker navbar, as that helps to sort of visually "anchor" or "hug" the page's contents:

enter image description here

I'm struggling to pick a good color for my navbar in my dark theme, though. Here's what it currently looks like on the same page:

enter image description here

I feel like there isn't enough contrast with the background. Google's material theme guide uses a lighter color for the navbar in dark mode to give the user a sense of elevation. That's what I did with my project cards, and I think it looks good. I tried it out with the navbar:

enter image description here

Two related questions:

  1. Does this look worse, or are my eyes inexperienced?

  2. Is it inconsistent to have a light theme with a navbar darker than the main background but to have a dark theme with a navbar lighter than the main background?

Tags: