Keep in mind that rebar3 avoids recompiling up-to-date modules (although it checks them).
That being said, I think the most popular option (and suitable for your needs) is using this plugin .
In my case, I have a set of scripts to set up inotifywait and bring up the whole release down and up again. I also often create shell functions if I need to compile often:

4> C = fun() -> c('my_awesome_module', []) end. 
#Fun<erl_eval.45.97283095>
5> C().
{error,non_existing}