Do I need to be synced with the network to make remote RPC calls? I want to make some RPC calls from my local computer to a server I have which is currently syncing with the network via $ bitcoind 

I am trying to make RPC calls for things like getinfo but my request are failing. I just want to double check if it's even possible to hit it with a request and receive data back if its not synced up. I would have thought no, but I can use the bitcoin-cli from my server to get things like getinfo without an issue.
Yes it is possible.

Using the rpcwait flag will prevent calls from failing while bitcoind is starting up.

Aslo, make sure you have configured your bitcoin.conf file correctly. 

rpcuser, rpcpassword, and rpcallowip need to be set and these params need to be passed to bitcoin-cli during an api call.