Yes, it's possible to install a developer's version from the CPAN shell, complete with dependencies. You just need to specify the author's CPAN id in all caps, followed by the exact name of the distro (technically, it's the filepath relative to the authors/id directory). For example, to install the developer's version of Search::Kinosearch, you would type...

install CREAMYG/Search-Kinosearch-0.03_02.tar.gz

... but I don't recommend it. ;)

The docs for the CPAN module cover this in greater detail.