I am a drone dev, and like 95% of ESC failures I've encountered were from knockoff or under-spec'd capacitors. Even a brief power-up with motors connected can cause damage (I have seen an ESC die from a Dshot beep) if you don't have a proper capacitor, and the ESC does not have TVS diodes for emergency protection. Sometimes it's one channel, sometimes the whole ESC fails.
Depending on how and when it fails, it can burn to a crisp (including half the drone) or show absolutely no visible damage whatsoever.
Also, check your wiring, and all the pins inside the connector (if it's solderless), one bad solder joint or a bent pin inside a connector might take down a single ESC channel.