Is melee at a disadvantage?

I would say the introduction of Herald of Ash has improved this to some degree. HoA + Prolif + Incr AoE can cover a huge swath of the screen with one giant overkill, and in terms of damage per hit melee builds are definitely strong than ranged.

It's a bit skewed at the moment I think because Bows got overbuffed between the actual buff and the fact that they were relatively easy to Elreon multi-mod to semi-god tier.