The functional derivative $\frac{\delta}{\delta \phi}$ acts on functionals, things that map functions to real numbers. That is, they act on actions $S$, not lagrangians $L$. I don't know where you got your original question, but there indeed should be a minus sign! Altogether, I think what you're asking is why:
$$
\frac{\delta}{\delta \phi} \int d^4x \left(\frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \phi\right) = - \partial^\mu \partial_\mu \phi \ .
$$
There are quick formulas you can look up, but for understanding I always find it easiest to work through the variation directly. First, take your term $\frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \phi$ and do the transformation $\phi \to \phi + \delta \phi$:
$$
\begin{align*}
\frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \phi &\to \frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu (\phi+\delta \phi) \partial_\mu (\phi + \delta \phi) \\
&= \frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \phi + \frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu (\delta \phi) \partial_\mu \phi + \frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu (\delta \phi) + \mathcal{O}(\delta\phi^2)
\end{align*}
$$
Now you can probably see where this is going, the $1/2$ will be accounted for by the two $\delta \phi$ terms in the expansion. This is really just product rule!
To extract the $\delta \phi$ you can integrate each term by parts, dropping the total derivative because this is physics and everything is 0 on the boundary :)
$$
\begin{align*}
\delta \int d^4x \left(\frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \phi\right) &= \int d^4 x\left(-\frac{1}{2}\delta \phi \ \partial^\mu \partial_\mu \phi - \frac{1}{2}\partial_\mu\partial^\mu \phi \ \delta \phi + \partial_\mu(\dots) \right )\\
&= \int d^4 x \ \delta \phi \left( -\partial^\mu \partial_\mu \phi \right)
\end{align*}
$$
The answer is just the integrand, without the $\delta \phi$, so finally we write:
$$
\frac{\delta}{\delta \phi} \int d^4x \left(\frac{1}{2} \partial^\mu \phi \partial_\mu \phi\right) = - \partial^\mu \partial_\mu \phi \ .
$$
Section 9.2 of Peskin & Schroeder runs through the axioms of functional integration if you'd like to see a more formal take on it.