Any way to change hues and colors?

Hi all, I've got what seems to be a simple question that's giving me trouble. Is there a way to change the color balance of sprites/layers without resorting to effects?

Perhaps I'm overlooking something. I'm trying to make a mobile game which features color transitions for sprites. Unfortunately WebGL effects don't work on a lot of mobile devices, so the closest I've come to is having a semi-transparent layer that changes color, thus tinting everything below it. This isn't the best solution because the colors aren't very saturated and look dull, and making the layer more opaque (thus more saturated) will obviously begin to obscure things below the layer. So, I was wondering if there's another way to change the color channels of an object, to change the hue but still keep it saturated?

I guess there is a thing called animation..

WebGL would be the first choice..

But if you want to have an effect without having an effect, best way is to fake it..

If you can't get what you want using blend-modes and/or WebGl, animations seems like the way to go..

I was wondering if that's something I'd have to resort to. Guess I can always try sprites with different colors slowly fading in to make the transition smooth. Either way, thanks for the help!