Epicycles were a mathematically brilliant MODEL, of our point of view of the cosmos. Far more accurate than the early heliocentric models, because we can directly see out from our point of view. That didn't mean it was the best model.

Dark Matter and Energy, Inflation, etc, are patches, like more epicycles.

What if your accountant could just write in a figure and call it Dark Money, whenever he found a gap in the books?

It used to be that when observation didn't match prediction, the underlaying theory was assumed to be falsified, or at least seriously brought into question, but not with cosmology.

The state of cosmology says more about academic politics, than it does about the science.