DrawableCompat tinting does not work on pre-Lollipop

When you call wrap() then the original Drawable is wrapped internally into a new DrawableWrapper which is used to implement the tinting on older devices. So to make it work you have to set the returned Drawable back to the EditText:

final Drawable originalDrawable = editText.getBackground();
final Drawable wrappedDrawable = DrawableCompat.wrap(originalDrawable);
DrawableCompat.setTintList(wrappedDrawable, ColorStateList.valueOf(Color.RED));
editText.setBackground(wrappedDrawable);

Since version 23.2.0 of the support library you can also use setTint() instead of setTintList() to set just one tint color without having to create a ColorStateList.

DrawableCompat.setTint(wrappedDrawable, Color.RED);

If you want to ensure backwards compatibility beyond API level 16 you run into a little snag. setBackground() was added in API level 16 and you need to call setBackgroundDrawable() on devices before that. It’s best to implement a helper method which does that for you:

public static void setBackground(View view, Drawable background) {
    if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {
        view.setBackground(background);
    } else {
        view.setBackgroundDrawable(background);
    }
}