Brightest EDC Flashlight?

Wow 4x18650 is not EDC at all. The smallest 4x18650 is the Noctigon M43 which is now on sale and much cheaper than how much everyone else paid for it. It does 7k-8k lumens and is very high quality. Here is a good review of it.

Another good 4x18650 flashlight is the MT03 modded by TA. The ones TA modded for me are super bright 22k or 23k lumens and very nice 4000k 80CRI tint that renders colors and textures very well.

If you want a very pocketable flashlight approaching 5000 lumens, you can get the Emisar D4vn modded with XP-L2 V6 bin emitters. I had Vinh put in XP-L2 4000k 80CRI V4 bin emitters and it makes 20.8% more lumens than the stock XP-L HI v2 bin. The tint on the 80CRI 4000k is really good. Not yellowish or greenish like most Cree XP-L2 high CRI emitters and I can actually tell a difference in color rendering compared to the stock XP-L HI v2. But this thing gets hot rapidly on max mode. The later versions of the D4 have a much lower moonlight than the older D4 versions and is perfect for bedside use.

I also have a Sofirn C8F host sent to TA for modding with triple XP-L2 4000k 80CRI emitters and it should produce 4.5 to 5k lumens and should be much more practical than the Emisar D4 due to its larger mass for heat dissipation. Even with the stock XP-L v6 emitters, I measured this thing to make about 3800 lumens and it has enough mass to maintain the lumens pretty well.